Broken
by NorthernSparrow
Summary: Cas is human and wounded; Dean and Sam need to get his grace back - and his wings. Things do not go as intended and Cas faces a difficult road. Canon-compliant alternate S10 (diverges at mid-S9); sequel to Forgotten but can be read alone. Gen, NO SLASH, loads of TFW friendship/family feels, angst, hurt Cas, H/C, canon-type action, long plotty case fic, wing fic, angel headcanon.
1. The Deal

_A/N - This is the PLATONIC version of the sequel to Forgotten._

_(There is also a Destiel version of this fic called Flight. PSA to Flight readers: If you have already read Flight you needn't read Broken. It's really the same fic, just with the Cas/Dean relationship staying platonic.)_

_Stuff you need to know: This fic 'verse diverges from canon at mid-season 9, and has grown into an alternate S10 where the mark of Cain never happened. Gadreel has been kicked out of Sam for some time now; Crowley's still in the basement; Cas lost his stolen grace pretty rapidly (Forgotten explains why), became human again, and spent the next six months on his own living in poverty before Dean and Sam finally found him again. Then in the late summer they all had a big adventure together in Wyoming. It's now fall, Cas is still human, he's wounded, and during Forgotten he gave up most of his lifespan to save Sam. So the boys need to find his grace again, and fast. _Not to mention... Cas really, really misses his wings.__

* * *

><p>Nightmares were old territory for Dean.<p>

He'd had them since he was a kid. Starting when Mom had died, of course, and then getting worse with all the monsters he'd faced since. And since the forty years in Hell...

Well, nightmares were routine, put it that way. He had them almost every night. It'd gotten so that Dean could sometimes recognize a nightmare while he was in the middle of one.

He still could never stop it though. Even when he was sort of aware he was in a dream, the nightmare always just marched on relentlessly. Horrible things kept happening left and right; people being tortured, monsters leaping at him, people dying... Like now. This moment, now, of staggering through the mountains at night with Sam and "Buddy", desperate to get away from the terrifying magma elemental— Dean knew, in the back of his mind, this had already happened, months ago. He knew, dimly, that it had happened in the past, that "Buddy" had really been their old friend Castiel, that it was long over, and that this must just be a nightmare.

But he couldn't stop it. He had to stagger through the woods just the same, just as exhausted and desperate as always. The dark, tangled woods seemed all too real, the tangled branches poking him all too believably. Dean had to watch Sam collapse one time too many, and had to stand helplessly aside as Cas tried to give Sam some life-essence— one time too many. Dean had to watch Sam grow still and cold. And then Cas slumped down too. Still and cold. Both of them.

They were both dead.

They were both... just... lying... there... _dead_.

"SAM?" Dean yelled. The branch was poking him in the shoulder again and Dean shoved it aside, kneeling by Sam and slapping his face. "CAS?" he cried, turning to Cas. But neither Sam nor Cas was breathing. No, _no_, this couldn't be happening — Cas was _dead _and Sam was _dead _and —

The branch shook his shoulder firmly. "Wake up, Dean," said an insistent low whisper, very close, right in his ear. It continued: "Dean, it's not real. It's a dream. Wake up." The branch shook his shoulder again.

Dean woke with a gasp.

"You were dreaming, Dean," said Cas. He was leaning over the bed, still shaking Dean's shoulder. "Hallucinating while you were asleep."

"Oh...right," said Dean. He rubbed his face with both hands, trying to pretend he was wide awake— and trying to hide how desperate he'd felt just a few seconds ago. _Just a dream. Just a dream. Shake it off. _"Yup. Uh, hi, Cas. Uh, what time's it?"

"Three in the morning," said Castiel, adding helpfully, "Dean, you can tell it was a dream by how rapidly the memory fades." He released Dean's shoulder and sat down on the edge of the bed, saying, "The details should be getting faint now, right? That means you were really just lying in here in bed, hallucinating in your sleep. Also, if you think about what you were just doing, you'll notice now that things didn't quite make sense. That's another clue that it was a dream. Also, now that you're awake you should be able to remember going to sleep last night. Right?"

Dean almost laughed to hear Cas so carefully explaining the illogic of human dreaming. Dreaming was one of many strange human experiences that Cas had had to adjust to over the past year. _Must've taken him a while to figure all that out_, Dean thought.

Must have been hell on him before he'd figured it out, too...

"Thanks, Cas," said Dean. He rubbed his face again, and sat up a bit on his elbows. "Just a dream. I got it."

Cas asked, "Dean, may I ask..." He hesitated a moment. Cas was still visible only as a dark silhouette against the open door, and Dean could really only see the shape of his shoulders, and the dim outline of his mussed hair. But he could hear Cas take a careful breath. Cas continued with, "You called my name. And Sam's name too. May I ask... were you dreaming that Sam and I left you?"

Dean blinked at him and sat up a little further. Being "left" was actually Castiel's unique brand of nightmare, not Dean's; Cas had been having nightmares of that sort ever since he'd nearly died in that lake in Nebraska. But... well, in this case it actually sort of fit.

"Sort of," said Dean. "Not exactly but... sort of, yeah."

Cas shifted a little, taking another breath. His voice dropped a little into his throaty Important-Proclamation tone as he said, "You should know, Dean, that Sam and I would never leave you. We would not do that to you."

_Unless you both go and die on me_, thought Dean.

Dean managed to say, "Thanks, Cas."

Cas said, still in that very serious, you-can-count-on-me sort of voice, "Perhaps you should drink some whiskey."

That, at least, made Dean laugh. "Thanks, Cas, I'm okay."

"Chocolate milk, then?" said Cas gravely.

"No, thanks," said Dean, smiling a little now. Sam had dragged Cas along on the last grocery run. It had been Cas's first foray into a grocery store after a solid year of grinding poverty, and Sam had apparently been unable to resist buying anything and everything that caught Cas's eye even slightly. They'd ended up coming home with over a dozen grocery bags stuffed full with a thousand random foods, everything from artichoke hearts to chocolate-coated strawberries to smoked salmon to devil's-food cake. (Cas had spotted the box and had instantly been very curious about what kind of cake devils liked, so of course Sam had to buy it.) And, yes, chocolate milk. Which had immediately become Cas's new favorite beverage.

"No chocolate milk? You're sure?" said Cas, sounding a little baffled that Dean was capable of turning down chocolate milk. "What if it were warmed up?"

"No thanks, Cas. Maybe some other time."

"How about—" Cas's voice brightened— "Whiskey mixed with chocolate milk!"

Dean tried not to laugh, and said, "I'm fine, really. But thanks. You can head back to your bed."

Only then did Dean finally realize that Castiel was in the wrong room.

Dean had been camping out in Cas's room for the past couple weeks, sleeping on a mattress on the floor while Cas recovered from his Nebraska ordeal and got the nightmares under control. Sam had been taking shifts too. But tonight had been supposed to be their first night all back in their own beds, in their own rooms. What was Cas doing here?

Dean reached out to the bedside lamp and flicked it on, and took a hard look at Cas. Cas looked pretty tired.

"Cas, what are you doing in here? Was I yelling or something?"

"Not yelling, no. But, you were talking a little bit," said Cas. "I happened to hear you."

"You _happened _to hear me? From down the hall in your own room?"

Cas gave a little shrug, and said, "Well... I might have happened to have been walking near your door..." At Dean's skeptical look, he confessed, "I was patrolling the hallway. Checking the whole bunker, actually."

"Checking the bunker?"

"Whenever I'm sleeping alone I always wake up every couple of hours and check. Just do a patrol, just check the boundaries."

"Wait, what? Every _couple of hours?"_

Cas looked a little puzzled. "I've done that ever since I lost my grace. Other people don't do that?" Dean shook his head, and Cas said, "But... how do you deal with it?"

"Deal with what?"

"Sleeping. Falling asleep." At Dean's puzzled look, Cas elaborated, saying, "How do you deal with knowing that you have to go unconscious for several hours? Knowing that there's no way to avoid it. Having to trust that your body is somehow going to know how to keep breathing on its own, and that the heart will know to keep beating... And, most of all, knowing there's no way to stay alert and keep watch. And nobody else awake to help keep guard."

"Okay, Cas," said Dean, sitting up all the way now. "Listen up. First off, your body is going to keep breathing; you just have to trust it. It knows what to do. Okay? And second, this place is really well warded. The Men of Letters definitely knew their stuff, about wards. There's even some alarms set, too, so if the wards ever broke we'd get woken up. Also Sam and I are pretty light sleepers, and we've both got weapons, and your room's between ours anyway."

"I know all that," said Cas. "I know that. But—" He sighed, and said, "In the garrison we usually worked in pairs. If one angel had to meditate or heal or even just needed some time to think, there was always a partner keeping watch. And during molt, of course, we... well... anyway..." _Molt? _thought Dean, but Cas went on with, "I suppose I'm still just not used to falling asleep alone. I've been doing it for months, of course, but I always wake up several times at night."

"Meg's not quite enough, huh?" said Dean.

Meg was the abandoned cat Castiel had rescued when he'd been living alone in his little mountain cabin. She rarely left his side now.

Cas said, "Meg is _marvelously _reassuring and I don't think I'd have gotten any sleep at all in the last couple months if she hadn't been with me. But, Dean, Meg is very small, and she doesn't know how to operate firearms."

Dean had to laugh at that. "Bet she's no good with angel-blades either, huh."

Cas nodded and said, "I tried to teach her once but she doesn't have opposable thumbs." Dean had to stifle another laugh, faking a cough, as Cas went on to say, "She does have claws of her own, of course, and she's actually a good hunter, but I think she could only take on mouse-sized demons. I hate to leave her the only one on guard. Especially since I still feel so weak, and I'm not... I'm not... well, I know I'd be no good in a fight."

Something in there had caught Dean's attention. Cas had said, _I'm not..._

"You're not what?" said Dean.

Cas glanced away, and didn't answer. And Dean went on alert at once.

Dean studied him for a moment. Cas still had the three diagonal whip scars across his face from Wyoming, and the bruises from Nebraska. He was still too thin, but he looked about normal, though. His hair was all mussed, as usual; he was wearing his usual mismatched sleeping outfit (an old flannel shirt of Dean's, a pair of Sam's old sweats with the cuffs rolled up about a foot, and a ridiculous pair of bunny slippers, completely with little ears. Sam had spotted the slippers on their shopping run and Cas had apparently fallen in love with them instantly; and also the slippers helped the cuts on his feet not hurt as much).

All looked about as usual. Cas looked about as he always did.

He looked exactly the same as he had two weeks ago, in fact.

Even the bruises and the whip-cuts looked exactly the same.

_Which... means..._ Dean realized slowly,_ He's not heali_ng.

It had been a couple weeks. Sure, Cas shouldn't be totally healed in two weeks, but there should have been more improvement. Dean realized now that he'd been trying to ignore this, trying to convince himself that Cas was healing just fine. But now, looking at him, with Cas sitting so close like this, and the light right on his face... the three diagonal whip scars across his face were still far too raw, the bruises still far too livid. There were dark circles under his eyes now too, and those just seemed to be getting worse every day. And Cas was still terribly thin, despite all the food Sam had been shoveling into him. At least Cas was walking a little better, but that was mostly due to the elaborate pack of gauze padding Sam had worked out for his feet.

Dean said, "You're not healing. Are you."

Cas just looked at him.

After a moment, Cas said, "My estimate of five years may have been inaccurate."

"Five...years," repeated Dean. "You mean... you mean, how many years you have left?"

Castiel nodded.

"Then how long?" said Dean quietly.

Cas gave a little shrug. "I don't know," he said. He sounded almost unconcerned. "Perhaps less than a year? I don't know."

There was a little pause.

"We gotta get your grace back," said Dean. "Immediately."

"Dean, I know you and Sam have been spending the last several weeks trying to figure out where Metatron hid my grace, but you must understand, this may be an impossible task—"

Dean broke in with, "I have a plan B. I've been thinking about it all week. Tomorrow we start plan B."

Cas frowned and said, "Your Plan B's are like other people's Plan Z's, Dean. Realistically—"

"We're not giving up on you, Cas," said Dean, cutting him off. "You just gotta accept that. Even if it's a Plan Z, we're gonna try it."

They sat there looking at each other for a moment, and finally Cas gave a reluctant nod.

"Plan Z tomorrow," said Dean, giving him a clap on the arm that was half a shove away, half a friendly pat. "Now you go get some sleep, and I'll patrol."

"You'll patrol? Dean, you don't you have to patrol. I can—"

"I'm awake now anyway. You go get some sleep. I'll patrol. Not a problem. It's a good idea,"

So Dean spent the rest of the night walking the hallway, and checking the wards, and walking the whole bunker. He took special pains to walk back and forth by Cas's door every hour, so that if Cas were awake, he'd hear Dean's footsteps and he'd know all was well.

He checked the bunker, and the library, and the kitchen, and the upper floors. When he got downstairs he stood in front of Crowley's door for a while, thinking about Plan B. Or — maybe Cas was right? — Plan Z.

* * *

><p>The next afternoon Dean hauled Crowley up from the basement, safely secured in devil's-trap handcuffs and shackles, and led him outside to where Sam (totally on board with Plan B) and Castiel (totally not on board with Plan B) were both waiting with the Impala.<p>

It was a blustery day in early November, with a bright sun shining sporadically through short squalls of chilly rain. Dean hustled Crowley over to the Impala, and Crowley slipped a little on some damp fallen leaves, blinking in the bright light. Crowley complained, "Dean, slow down, would you? It's so nice to have a pleasant outing like this with you all, but this bright light is hurting my poor weak eyes. I've just been alone for so long in that sad lonely dark dungeon, alas... with only Buffy the Vampire Slayer and one hundred eighty cable channels for company...and no premium channels at all..." His eyes fell on Castiel, and he said, "Hell's bells, Castiel, you look just awful. What have these boys been feeding you?"

"Devil's-food cake and chocolate milk," answered Castiel.

"Devil's-food cake?" Crowley cast a mock-horrified look at Sam and Dean. "You're feeding him devil's-food cake instead of angel-food cake? What's wrong with you two? Didn't the pet store explain to you how to take care of your pet angel?"

"Get over to the trunk," snapped Dean, hauling him to the back of the Impala.

Crowley let Dean drag him over, still chattering cheerfully, "Angel-food cake at _all_ times, and don't forget the litterbox. You can train pet angels to use litterboxes, did you know that? The smarter ones, anyway; I'm not sure if Cas here would qualify."

Dean gave Crowley a sudden sharp shove on the chest just as Sam grabbed one ankle. Together they flipped him unceremoniously into the trunk and slammed it shut, ignoring the muffled yelps coming from inside. Dean turned to Sam and Cas, and said, "Let's get this show on the road. I want to do this as far away from the bunker as possible, just on general principle."

"Dean, I'm really not sure that—" Cas began.

"Plan Z or bust, Cas," said Dean. "Unless you've got a better idea?"

Cas still looked unhappy. He said, "I just hate to see you lose your biggest asset on my account."

Sam pointed out, "Crowley never turned out to be that much of an asset. Just good for the jokes, really. And we know how to summon him later if we ever need."

"Also I have _truly_ had it with his theories about Buffy and Spike," said Dean as they all clambered into the Impala.

* * *

><p>Dean drove to the far side of the Missouri River. The drive was a couple hours, but Dean always felt a little better when he got a good-sized river of running water between demons and home. Demons <em>could<em> actually travel over bridges, technically, but apparently the old lore about magic being weaker over running water did have a grain of truth; demons' powers were reportedly a little bit weaker near big rivers. Every little bit helped, right?

They found a deserted parking lot in a little-used state park with a nice view of the water. It was near sunset, the sun sinking down over the river, as Dean hauled Crowley out of the trunk and set him down on a folding chair, while Sam spray-painted a devil's-trap around him. Cas kept pointing out little spots Sam had missed, and finally he grabbed the can from Sam and added a few mysterious details of his own, while Dean got Crowley settled.

"Far side of running water, I see," said Crowley, glancing around. "Classic old-school touch, Dean, nicely done. Where are we, anyway? Missouri? This is getting more and more interesting. Why'd you bring me all the way out here?"

"We got a proposition for you," said Dean.

Crowley sighed. "Oh, spare me. Another long round of negotiations? Some spell you need to make a birthday cake for Castiel here? Or, let's see, do you need me to translate some damn scrap of ancient Mayan in order to save your pet hamster? Boys, I told you before, during your previous little adventure with that Cretan minotaur you already gave me everything I want except for setting me free, and I know you're not going to do _that. _So, whatever you're selling, I'm not interested."

"Get us what we want and we'll set you free," said Dean.

"Oh well in _that _case I'm all ears!" said Crowley, brightening suddenly. He sobered a second later and said, "Though knowing you lot, it's going to either be something one hundred percent impossible, or something that'll get me one hundred percent killed. Re-open Heaven? Get Lucifer out of his cage? Make you into an archangel? If it's something like that, boys, I can't do it."

"Find Castiel's grace for us," said Dean.

Crowley shut his mouth. He looked at Dean for a long moment, and then turned and looked at Cas.

And kept looking at Cas. Thin, pale, Castiel; bruised, beaten, all the whipmarks and bruises as fresh and raw as ever. He was on his feet, at least; but only just.

"Oh," said Crowley. "I see." He looked back at Dean, a little smile creeping over his face.

Dean added, "Metatron stole Cas's grace from him. We need it back. We can't find it."

Crowley still said nothing, his little grin just growing wider, and at last Dean snapped, "What are you grinning about?"

"Oh, nothing," said Crowley, all innocence suddenly. "Nothing at all." He leaned back in his chair, raised his eyebrows, and said, "Listen up, boys. Despite being cooped in your dungeon, I actually do manage to hear a bit of chatter - you really should have checked those cable channels, you know - and in fact, a while back I did hear something about a spark of angelic grace being present on Earth. Not attached to an angel, either, like usual; just in its raw form. And I even developed a pretty solid theory about where it might be. It's not easy to hide something like that from demons, you know. It sort of itches at us. But here's the problem: I can't handle it myself."

Crowley paused and looked at each of three of them in turn. The sun was setting now across the river, the wide river gleaming with reflected sunset, and Crowley's face seemed lit with the colors of Hell - oranges, yellows, reds.

Crowley explained, "Castiel knows this but you two probably don't: an untethered angel's grace would burn me if I tried to handle it directly. Even just getting near it would be quite uncomfortable. That's exactly why it's so hard to hide a thing like that from demons; we can feel it when we're anywhere near it. But you're in luck! I just happen to have a couple of, um, _associates_, shall we say, who are able to handle grace safely, and who might be willing to help." Crowley paused, waited a few beats (Dean could almost see him thinking "I'll pause here for dramatic effect") and then went on, dropping his voice and staring meaningfully at Dean.

"Here's my proposition," Crowley said, suddenly in his lawyer-mode, stating each word very slowly and clearly. "You let me go. I see if I can negotiate with my associates to locate the grace and bring it to you, Dean. I don't control them, so I can't guarantee they'll hand it over to you, but I'm willing to go out on a limb and make a deal that they'll at least bring it to you and be willing to negotiate with you. If they do bring the grace to you and are willing to open negotiations, I walk away free. If not, I walk back into your dungeon. Do we have a deal? Usual contract, signed and sealed and ratified like always."

Dean hesitated.

Crowley added, "You know my word is good. Once I sign a contract I have to abide by it. If I don't hold up my end of the bargain, I'll walk back right back into your devil's-trap in your dungeon. And that's the best I can do for you, boys. And before you ask, no, I absolutely won't put you directly in touch with my associates, because I'm not a complete idiot; and no, you can't stick any codicils on this, because this really won't be an easy job and I absolutely despise grace jobs anyway. So, take it or leave it." He smiled cheerily and added, "One-time offer, today only, act now!"

The sunset had gotten even redder now, the sky and the river positively aflame with red, and Crowley's eyes glinted red for a moment. He suddenly looked at his most demonic.

Dean thought, _I don't like this._

Sam pulled Dean several feet further away and said, "I don't like this."

Cas limped over to both of them and whispered, "I really don't like this."

"Great minds think alike," muttered Dean back to both of them.

Cas whispered, "Or, stupid minds." Dean could only shrug at that; Sam gave a little laugh.

Dean thought a moment, and said softly to both of them, "What other options do we have? At least if we get within shouting distance of the grace we have a chance. We're pretty good negotiators, Cas, don't you think? Whoever these "associates" are, we can come up with something. At least we'll find out where the grace is. And even if Crowley surrounds us by demons right away, or has hellhounds all around us or something, at least we'll have a _chance_. Some kind of chance, at least."

They were all silent a moment.

"All in favor?" said Dean.

"I'm in," said Sam, with a sigh.

"Me too," said Dean.

Cas said, "I don't know, Dean. I really don't want to put you two at risk. I'm not sure it's worth it."

Dean said, "Two to one, motion passes." Before Cas could say anything else, Dean called to Crowley, "You got a deal. Let's write it up."

* * *

><p>Twenty minutes later they were on the road back to Lebanon, this time with Cas riding shotgun and Sam in the back. The trunk was empty, Crowley was gone, Dean was still ferociously wiping his mouth and spitting periodically out his window, and Sam was laughing in the back seat.<p>

Sam finally got his laughter under control long enough to say, "There's nothing like the taste of a Crowley kiss to put you off your appetite, huh?"

Dean spat out the window again and said, "Don't think I'll be able to eat for a week. Maybe two."

"Maybe you can wash down a demon kiss with some of that devil's food cake, back at the bunker," said Sam, still chuckling. "Or, wait. Angel-food to neutralize it?"

"I was thinking something more like, five gallons of whisky to sterilize my mouth," growled Dean.

Out of the blue Cas asked, "Was he right about the cakes?"

Dean couldn't even remember what he was talking about, till Cas added, "I liked the devil's-food cake. Should I be eating angel food?" He sounded a little worried.

Sam leaned forward to say, "Crowley was just joking, Cas. Devil's-food isn't for devils; it just means dark chocolate. It's named that just because it's so good it seems like a sin to eat it. It doesn't mean angels can't eat it. So, don't worry, it's totally fine if you like it."

Cas said, now sounding puzzled, "It's named that because it's good? But... shouldn't angel cake be good? And devil cake be bad? Or... do people think..." He paused. After a moment he said, "So it's backwards... I see. People prefer the food of devils?"

A little silence fell over the car. Dean glanced over, and found that Cas was just staring quietly at his feet.

Sam leaned forward and patted Cas on the shoulder, and said, "Cas, angel-food's also a good cake. People love it."

"They do?" said Cas, craning around to look at him.

"Yup. Angel-food's a sponge cake. It's really light and fluffy. It's like a cloud; that's how it got its name. And it's great. I love it, actually, it's lighter. They're both good cakes, Cas."

"Hey. I got an idea," said Dean. "Once we get back to the bunker let's make both, a devil's-food cake and an angel-food cake and have them side-by-side. With burgers. And pies. And with chocolate milk and _at least _five gallons of whiskey. And Cas, you're gonna tell us all about where you want to fly to first, when you get your wings back."

Dean snuck a glance at him. Cas was still quiet, and was still staring at his feet. But now that Dean had mentioned wings, Cas was smiling.

* * *

><p><em>AN - And off we go into platonic-land! And don't worry, any Destiel fans reading this; you'll find there's still loads of emotions and feels even in a platonic fic. Remember the big message of Forgotten: even if it's all "just" platonic, our two boys and their angel do love each other, and they need each other. :)_


	2. The Holiday

_A/N - This chapter has an unusual amount of short scenes; it's really a lot of vignettes about life in the bunker. The calm before the storm._

* * *

><p>Days slid by with no word from Crowley.<p>

The contract he'd written out, that evening by the banks of the Missouri, had specified that he'd work "with all possible haste and all due diligence." But it had _not_ promised that he'd find the grace instantly, and Crowley had steadfastly refused to add any such "totally unfair clauses", as he'd put it.

So day after day drifted by. November tightened its gray chilly hold on northern Kansas; the last of the leaves fell from the trees around the bunker. Dean had to force himself to relax and try not to be on tenterhooks every day about whether Crowley would succeed, whether today they'd hear from him, whether the "associates" would negotiate or not.

Fortunately Cas was actually doing okay. He still wasn't exactly healing, but he wasn't right at death's-door either, and both Sam and Dean began to feel a little hopeful that he might have a little more time than they'd feared. But a foreboding sense of limited time seemed to be hanging over the bunker, and Sam and Dean agreed privately not to take any more cases while Cas was still so weak. If Cas got his grace back soon, then they could all go on hunts again. If he didn't...

Well, they didn't actually talk about that possibility.

But Dean noticed how Sam started making every tasty meal that he could think of, all sorts of stir-fries and home-made pizzas and special salads, and, yes, the cakes; everything Sam thought Cas might like. While Dean, for his part, found he kept coming home with new movies for Cas to watch, or shows he thought Cas might enjoy, or music he thought Cas should hear. Or just taking him on little drives in the Impala to some local parks, to show him the last of the fall colors.

So, no more hunts for now. They'd agreed.

But then the lightning strikes started hitting the news.

And then the hurricanes.

* * *

><p>In the second week of November, a weird series of hundreds of lightning strikes began hitting buildings, trees, and even some unfortunate people, all up and down the West Coast. A week later, a set of tornados went roaring through Ohio that seemed almost to be striking towns on purpose, hopscotching across the landscape from town to town with bizarrely targeted jumps, striking heavily populated areas with deadly accuracy.<p>

Dean didn't really notice it too much at first. Till one night when Sam was poking around on his laptop. Cas was conked out on the library sofa again — Sam had just read him off to sleep with a few chapters from "Ozma of Oz" — and Sam had taken the opportunity to check up on the news.

A few minutes later Sam called to Dean quietly from across the long wooden table, saying, "Dean. Did you realize there's been a Category 5 hurricane hitting the East Coast every single week for the past _five _weeks?"

"Oh, that doesn't sound good," said Dean. He got up and walked around the table to peer over Sam's shoulder at the laptop. "I guess I heard something about hurricanes in the news, but didn't realize it was getting that unusual."

"Worst hurricane season in history, Dean," said Sam. "Take a look." He tilted the laptop toward Dean. "And. Dean. Also it's been the worst tornado season, and kind of out-of-season, too. And also, the most lightning strikes ever recorded in one year."

Dean skimmed the news article. Sam then clicked a few keys to get to some NOAA weather maps. Which showed masses of lightning strikes, and tornadoes virtually carpeting the Midwest, and what seemed like a really strange number of hurricanes and tropical storms sweeping up from the Atlantic Ocean toward the East Coast.

Dean said quietly, hoping not to wake Cas, "Dammit. That's... a ton of stuff. I didn't realize it was that many things all at once."

"Yeah. There's definitely something up. Lightning, tornadoes and now hurricanes? And it's all over the continent, and, get this, cyclones in the Pacific are up too. A lot of big waves, apparently. Every kind of storm possible, everywhere you look."

Dean frowned at the little maps. Even as they watched, a map refreshed with some more lightning strikes added. "Huh. This is so... _widespread_." Dean said, leaning over the table on both his hands to get a closer look. He said, "How would we even start with something like this? Where would we go? I mean, literally, where should we go, specifically?"

Sam shrugged, his mouth twisted in a little grimace. "That's the problem. I've got no idea where to go. I mean, look at that mess—" he gestured at the maps again— "I don't see any kind of cluster anywhere. No focal point. It's everywhere. Lightning to the west, tornadoes in the middle, hurricanes to the east. I don't really know how to start with a weather problem that's hitting the entire damn continent."

Sam began drumming his fingers on the table, and they both just looked at the NOAA maps for a moment.

Dean finally said, "If we tried to tackle any of this on our own it seems like we'd just be outmatched immediately. I mean, we could _try_... but... "

Sam shook his head, saying, "We have exactly zero clue what we're up against. I can totally see us heading out to try to do something and just getting zapped by lightning instantly."

Dean nodded. "And then Cas'd be stuck here on his own, too."

And then he couldn't help picturing, for a moment, just what that would be like for Cas. If Dean and Sam went off on a hunt and never came back.

It came with the territory, for hunters. And for hunters' friends, of course. But couldn't they just have a month or two of peace together? Just one month, maybe, while they tried to fix up Cas?

Sam got a rueful little grin on his face. He looked up at Dean and said, "Remember when we just had to tackle a ghost here or there? Maybe a monster? Maybe _one_ demon, on a really bad day." The memory almost made Dean laugh. Sam added, "You know what I'm thinking?"

"What?"

"If we we learned one thing in Wyoming, we learned that when things get really major-league like this, we need an angel on our side." Sam dropped his voice even lower, to just a whisper, and said, "Maybe Cas'll get his grace back soon and we can deal with it then?"

Dean nodded, and whispered back. "So we stick to our plan. Such as it is."

"Such as it is," agreed Sam. "Stay here, take care of Cas, see if Crowley comes through. I'll keep researching in the meantime. Then when Cas is angel'd up, maybe he can help us try to tackle all this lightning-and-hurricane stuff."

_When_, Sam had said. _When _Cas is angel'd up. Not _if_.

Dean glanced at him, and Sam looked away.

They both automatically glanced over to the library, where they could just see the edge of Cas's sofa. From here, Dean could just see the top of Cas's head. Looked like Cas had just passed out there again, his face turned toward the warmth of the fire.

Cas seemed to be feeling cold more, this week. And sleeping more...

"Hey, maybe I'll get dinner started," said Sam. "Thought I'd try this pasta thing he might like. Maybe brownies for later?"

"Oh, I bet he'll like brownies. Good idea," said Dean. "And I picked up a couple more movies. The first Indiana Jones, and Ghostbusters. Think he'll like those?"

"Absolutely," said Sam, shutting the laptop. "He'll love 'em."

* * *

><p>So November continued on. Unofficially it had become Take-Care-Of-Castiel Month.<p>

Feeding him was a major priority. Cas was still way too thin and seemed only just able to maintain his weight if he ate more-or-less constantly. Dean tried to chip in, contributing his best burgers, and fajitas, and steaks - and then of course Cas got curious and Dean had to show him how to use a grill. Sam, meanwhile, was turning into practically a chef, turning out an impressive series of stir-fries and interesting salads and elaborate pesto things and smoothies and "all that healthy crap", as Dean called it.

Though Sam also seemed to have time, in between making all the healthy crap, to also produce a pretty steady stream of both devil's-food cakes and angel-food cakes. And then, of course, inevitably, Cas demanded that Sam show him how to bake. One thing led to another and suddenly the bunker was perpetually full of the aroma of cakes baking, and then cookies, then scones and muffins, and then cupcakes. And then, perhaps inevitably, pies.

The first few baking efforts included some seriously flawed chemistry experiments, several of which set off the smoke alarm and a few of which actually burst into flame. Cas learned (slowly) that salt shouldn't be swapped for sugar, or protein powder for flour, or baking soda for baking powder, or soy sauce for maple syrup. Dean got into gales of laughter over some of the failures, but Cas was undaunted and pretty soon he'd actually got a decent handle on it. "Dean, it turns out it's really just chemistry," he announced one evening, unveiling a pretty damn respectable cherry pie. "You just have to use the correct ingredients and keep the ratios consistent and use a timer."

After that it was Pie Bonanza every day.

Dean had no objections.

* * *

><p>At night, though, Cas was still creeping out to do his night-time patrols. Finally Dean had a word with Sam and between the two of them they managed to take over most of the patrols and convince Cas to stay in bed for most of the night.<p>

Cas was clearly losing energy. He slept increasingly late into the morning, and began taking naps once or twice a day. Yet still he insisted on making the pies, and he kept trailing after both Dean and Sam, as well, in the bunker. They kept chasing him back to bed to rest, or to the library sofa to doze in front of the fire, yet inevitably Cas kept turning up again. He'd appear in the laundry room to watch Sam folding the sheets, or he'd offer to help Dean with some errand outside, or he'd try to make some more pies even when they were both telling him to rest.

Often he came limping out to the garage where Dean often was, usually working on the Impala. Dean would roll out from under the car to find Cas sitting there on the stairs by the garage workbench, just watching Dean work.

Sometimes Dean woke at night to find Cas sitting by his bed.

It reminded Dean, sometimes, of the year when they'd first met. Back then, Cas had had a habit of appearing unexpectedly. Dean would walk around a corner and there was Cas, staring at him; Dean would wake up in bed and there was Cas, the mysterious angel Castiel, just sitting there on the edge of his bed. Maybe watching Dean, maybe just staring at the wall.

Often with a sort of a remote, sad look on his face that Dean had never quite been able to interpret.

Back then Cas had seemed so mysterious. Frightening, even. Invulnerable. Dean had been bewildered, then, by why Cas kept showing up. Was he studying Dean? Planning something? Up to something?

It occurred to him now that maybe Castiel had just wanted some company.

The company actually might have been kind of nice. But Cas was looking so tired, these days; so whenever Dean found Cas sitting there by the workbench, or offering to help Sam with his library research, or wanting to come with Dean to the grocery store, Dean always felt obliged to chase Cas right back to bed.

* * *

><p>Cas also ended up on the sofa in the tv room pretty often. Dean got a little out of control with the movies. Pirated copies he'd downloaded, stuff off Netflix, dvd's from the town library, even old VHS tapes from the thrift store for fifty cents a pop, Dean collected it all. It started out as just occasional movie nights, with Sam, Cas and Dean— well, and Meg— squished side-by-side on the couch. Finally Sam dragged a couple of big easy chairs over to the tv so that Cas could stretch out on the sofa in comfort. Eventually it sorted out into a little routine: Sam made the popcorn, Dean got the beers, and then they watched a movie together, Cas flopped out on the sofa and Sam and Dean sitting in easy chairs on either side.<p>

More and more often Cas fell asleep in the middle of a movie. Whenever this happened, without ever really talking about it, Sam and Dean started taking turns sitting with him. One brother would go off to do the dinner dishes, while the other stayed with Cas.

Whenever it was Dean's turn to sit with Cas, he couldn't seem to stop watching Cas's breathing. Was it weaker? Slower? Was he definitely still breathing? Were the bruises on his face worse?

The days kept ticking by with no word from Crowley. So Dean kept coming up with more lists of movies Cas needed to see, and Sam kept coming up with elaborate meal plans, and Cas kept baking pies. And almost every night Cas fell asleep there on the sofa, and Dean or Sam sat there with him, watching over him while he slept.

* * *

><p>After a few occasions when Sam and Dean both had to leave the bunker for shopping trips - leaving Cas all alone - Dean realized he really had better teach Cas how to load and shoot a shotgun and pistol, and how to clean and care for the guns. Just in case. So one bright sunny day in mid-November, on an afternoon when Cas actually seemed to have a bit of energy, Dean gave Cas a little tutorial on basic gun safety. (It turned out certain little details like, oh, not waving a loaded gun around randomly, and not pointing it at your friend, didn't come all that naturally to someone who'd spent millennia being able to instantly heal any injury.)<p>

Then Sam and Dean took him outside to try some target practice on the classic Kansas-backyard-shooting-range they'd set up in a field outside the bunker. The bunker also had an indoor shooting range, of course, but the weather was so nice, and also it was fun to be able to set up really distant targets, even if nobody had a chance of hitting them.

Dean set up six beer cans for Cas fairly close, and another six about thirty paces away away. And then, just for fun, another six that were impossibly far off at the very edge of the field.

"All right, bucko," said Dean, walking back to Cas and Sam. He handed Cas his pistol, and watched while Cas carefully clicked off the safety. Dean said, "Give that a try. And remember, don't worry when you don't hit the far ones — they're really pretty far, it's just for practice, and it's normal to miss those—"

_BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. _Cas started firing, using the two-handed grip Dean had shown him, and instantly the six close cans flew off their plank, one at a time, and then the six farther ones. And then the six distant ones. Eighteen shots, eighteen cans hit.

Cas put the safety back on and lowered the gun. "Like that?" he said.

Dean and Sam glanced at each other. Dean walked over to the furthest line of cans and picked one up. It'd been hit dead center. He found another can, and another; dead center shots, all of them.

He walked back and showed them to Sam, who just shook his head and laughed.

"Did I do poorly?" said Castiel, looking back and forth between them.

"Um... no," said Dean.

"You might be able to try out for the U.S. Olympic team, Cas," said Sam, still looking at one of the cans. "These were all perfect shots."

"Oh. Is that unusual?"

"Yes," said Dean and Sam simultaneously.

"I did hone my vessel's vision," said Cas. "Back when I was an angel. Could that be why? Oh and... also I improved some of the reflexes and the hand-eye coordination. Perhaps some of that has remained?"

"That is just _no fair_," said Dean, tossing the cans on the ground. Sam just laughed.

Cas added, "I wanted to add ultraviolet vision, and infrared, and polarized light, and a magnetic sense. But it turns out you can't really work those into a human eye. Really too bad, actually. Polarized light is so helpful. And a built-in magnetic compass would have been handy. Also I really miss infrared. And the extra colors you get with a UV receptor... the sunset really doesn't look the same. Actually I don't understand why you don't feel half-blind all the time."

"I hadn't been feeling half-blind till you mentioned any of this," said Sam.

Dean cleared his throat. "Let's go work on your driving, Cas, huh?" said Dean. "Because suddenly I really need to feel better than you at something."

Sam snorted, and said to Dean, "I've got a feeling you're only going to be better than him at driving for about two more days, so you'd better make the most of it."

So Dean took Castiel out for some driving lessons.

Even despite Cas's weakened condition, it only took one day.

* * *

><p>A week later Cas drove the Impala all the way to the far-away grocery store in Hastings. With his own Kansas driver's license, in the name of Cas T.L. Winchester, tucked in his jacket pocket. He was driving far too perfectly, even going the actual speed limit, but just the same Dean got so antsy sitting in the passenger seat that Sam threatened to blindfold him and stick him in the trunk. But they did manage to get to the store.<p>

Dean had thought they'd just pick up some miscellaneous stuff and head right back home, just a little outing for Cas to practice driving, but once in the store Sam made a beeline to the meat section, dragging Dean along with him while Cas vanished into the baking aisle.

"How many pounds, do you think?" said Sam. "How much are you gonna want?"

Dean slowly realized that Sam was standing in front of a big freezer bin of frozen turkeys.

Sam must have noticed Dean's baffled look, for he laughed and said, "Thanksgiving, Dean. It's this holiday that usually happens at the end of November? That holiday when people eat a turkey? You might have heard of it?"

Dean had forgotten.

Sam reached into the freezer bin, rolling the big round frozen turkeys around to check their weights, "I thought maybe we could do the whole thing, turkey and stuffing and everything— what do you think? Cas hasn't ever had a Thanksgiving. He doesn't really get the idea, actually, but I told him it's just a big meal with a turkey and pies, and now he has like three different pies he wants to try making. So, how about it? A real Thanksgiving dinner for once?"

For some reason Dean felt weirdly disturbed by this idea, but he nodded quietly, and then trailed along after Sam and Cas as they loaded a cart full of food.

* * *

><p>Two days later, on Thanksgiving Day, Dean was sitting at the kitchen table with Cas and Sam, watching Sam carve up a ridiculously huge turkey. And all Dean could think, over and over, was <em>This is very strange<em>. _This is really really strange._ Not bad, of course— it was all good. Sam's turkey had come out great, and Cas's pies were ridiculously amazing (apple, pumpkin and mixed-berry). And they had also ended up with no less than ten side dishes— Cas had wanted to try all the classic ones and once again Sam had been totally unable to hold back.

It was good. It was all good. It was awesome, actually.

Or, it _should_ have been awesome. The food was delicious, and they were all here sitting here together, and Dean had a couple more movies lined up. Cas had just said some weird thing about the latest Wizard of Oz book that had got Sam cracking up again. Cas wasn't doing too badly, really, and Sam actually looked really happy for once, and nobody had died in months now, and...

It ought to have felt great.

It ought to have felt like family.

And it did, actually. _It does feel ilke family_, thought Dean, _it really does_. _Actually... it IS family. _Abruptly he realized, sitting there in his chair, that this was exactly why it wasn't so great. For suddenly he was fighting down a sudden surge of panic. The thought _If they're my family, they'll all die_, came zinging unbidden into his mind, and Dean's mouth nearly went dry. He sat there, his hands tightening on his fork and knife as he looked at them both: Cas next to him explaining something about his pie crust, Sam standing up now cutting up the pies— and Dean felt completely certain that Sam and Cas were both going to die. Because that was what always happened. Always.

_They'll be taken away, _thought Dean. _They'll die, like Kevin and Bobby, or they'll leave, like Charlie, or they'll forget me, like Lisa. Even Sam... I barely got him back. That was so damn friggin' close... and I'm not going to be able to save him like that again. I promised him I wouldn't. And Cas... I lost my MEMORY of him! And he nearly died, so many times, with the orb, and then in the lake, and now Cas is— Cas is ... Crowley still hasn't gotten in touch, and Cas is... probably going to... Cas is probably going to... By Christmas, will Cas be..._

Dean could only cut off the thought by chugging a huge swig of his whiskey. Sam shot him a questioning look, but Dean looked away.

Well, at least they hadn't gone around the table and said thanks, or any of that crap. Or said grace.

In fact nobody had even mentioned the word "grace" in a few weeks.

Dean eventually managed to calm himself down, by the tried-and-true method of swigging his way rapidly through a few more glassfuls of booze and then launching on a long, irrelevant story, which in this case turned out to be Dean making an impassioned case about whether or not Han Solo or Greedo had shot first in the original Star Wars movie. This necessarily involved some elaborate tangents about Indiana Jones and also the Die Hard series and then a long speech about Spiderman, which Dean felt sure was also highly relevant to his Han Solo case. Sam started laughing, but Cas just sat there staring at Dean, slowly eating forkful after forkful of pie, looking increasingly puzzled but perfectly content.

About fifteen minutes later Dean was wrapping up with an emphatic, "So, you see, Han _definitely _shot first or the entire basis of his character collapses," when Cas interrupted him out of the blue with:

"If I don't get my grace back..."

Dean stopped in mid-sentence. He and Sam both looked at Cas.

Cas looked a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. I just wanted to say that today has been a very nice day." He put his fork down, and said, "Last year on this night, I was sleeping on a concrete floor and I was hungry, and uncomfortable, and I was alone and I only had enough money for a burrito. I knew it was a holiday— I knew it was Thanksgiving— though I didn't really understand what that was exactly, but I knew it was a day to feel thankful, and I _was_ trying to feel thankful for a couple of things. For one, I'd found the floor to sleep on— it was dry at least, and it's just awful being out in the rain when you're also cold, so I was thankful about being somewhere dry. Then of course, there was the burrito too and I felt thankful about that also. So I concluded then that the point of the holiday is to be thankful if you've got a floor to sleep on, out of the rain and snow, and a burrito. But I kept thinking about the two of you." Cas glanced down at his plate. "I wondered what you were doing. I was hoping you were both okay. Hoping you had had a nice meal together."

Sam and Dean were both silent.

"And now I've realized," went on Cas, "the floor and burrito were nice, back then; and the pies and turkey are extremely nice, now; but that's actually not the point, is it? The real point is to be with family, isn't it?" Cas looked up at Dean, and looked over at Sam too. "The point is to be with family. To feed them food you made. To listen to their stories." Cas added with a half-smile at Dean, "Even if the stories don't make any sense. Have I got it right?"

After a moment, Sam nodded and said, "Pretty much, Cas. Yeah."

Dean found he had gone entirely mute.

"So, if I don't get my grace back," Cas said again. "If next year if I'm not here, I just wanted to say that —"

"Stop right there," said Dean abruptly. "Stop." They both turned and looked at him, and Dean said, "No goodbyes." _And please don't remind me what a bastard I was to you_, he thought. _Last year... I could have done something. Sent you some money. Paid for a motel room. Given you a call. Something. Anything._

Cas was looking at him again, and Dean stared down into his glass.

"I was just going to say," said Cas, gently but insistently, "that no matter what happens next, today was a very good day." Dean still didn't say anything, and Cas finally said, "Dean?" He reached out and touched Dean on the shoulder. "Have I said something wrong?"

"_Dean_," Sam said, in a kind of a low growl.

"No... nothing wrong." Dean managed to say, "Just... Cas, I'm... " He swallowed. "I'm sorry you weren't here last year. I really am."

"But I'm here now," said Castiel. "That was my point. I'm glad I'm here now."

He gave Dean a smile. A gentle, relaxed smile.

With no bitterness... and no blame.

That was Castiel, wasn't it?

Dean felt the clenched feeling around his heart ease a little. But only a little.

* * *

><p>The very next day, the Friday after Thanksgiving, Dean did something he thought he would never do in all his life. Something of earth-shattering importance. Something that left Sam absolutely stunned:<p>

Dean told Castiel to take the Impala out by himself. Anywhere he wanted.

Cas was so startled by this offer that he couldn't even seem to figure out where to go. He spent a while standing at the Impala holding the key, just staring at the car, till Sam suggested that maybe Cas could go to Lebanon's tiny community library to return some of Cas's books (baking books, predictably; and an astonishing number of Oz books). And maybe pick up the next Oz book and a few new movies.

Dean made sure Cas had his cell phone, checked it himself to be sure it was charged, made Cas recite Dean's cell number from memory just in case, gave him some cash just in case, told him what to do if he got a flat tire, just in case, and made him recite the route to and from the library several times, just in case. (The library was all of two miles away, on a dead straight road.) Dean was just in the middle of describing what to do if a rainstorm suddenly came up and the wipers broke, just in case, when Cas said, "Dean. DEAN."

Dean stopped.

Cas said, "Dean, I've walked on the surface of the sun. I watched Pangaea break apart. I can drive an automobile two miles to a library."

"Uh," said Dean. "Okay. Um. But, call if anything comes up, okay?"

Sam was chuckling by now, but Cas just nodded and got in the Impala, started it up smoothly, and steered it perfectly out of the garage and away down the driveway. Still Dean just couldn't take his eyes off the Impala. He followed the car out of the garage, and stood outside watching Cas heading down the long driveway, somehow fearing that the Impala would suddenly veer right into a tree, or maybe spontaneously flip over and burst into flames.

But the Impala just rolled neatly away, in a perfectly straight line down the long rutted bunker driveway. Dean could still make out the shape of Cas's head in the front seat. Dean watched till the car made a smooth turn onto the main road and went out of sight.

"They grow up so fast, don't they," said Sam, beside him. "Next thing you know he'll be heading off to college."

"Ah, stuff it," said Dean, still watching the empty driveway.

"Empty-nest syndrome really can hit you hard, you know," went on Sam. "Maybe you need a hobby to take your mind off it? Maybe you could take up knitting."

Dean was opening his mouth to say "I'll stick that knitting where the sun don't shine, Sam" when he felt a hand on his shoulder, _and it wasn't Sam's hand_. He didn't even have a split second to move or shout or pull his gun or _anything_; instead there was a sudden, strangely queasy feeling like a rubber band pulling at his guts, and a sliding sensation across his skin as if he'd popped suddenly through a thin soap bubble, and abruptly the world went grey and misty. Dean had felt this before, and he knew immediately: _It's an angel. An angel's flying me somewhere. And it's not Cas._

For a microsecond he still saw the bunker, and the trees, and the driveway, all looking as grey and filmy as if he were watching an old black-and-white movie. Then the grey, misty ground flew away from under him, hundreds of miles unspooling in a moment. Prairie rocketed past at blistering speed, hills appeared and flowed past in an instant, and then mountains went zooming past.

And suddenly they were back in the world of normal colors, and they were on a mountaintop. He and Sam. Side by side. Tied to a pair of trees.

Dean gasped for breath, still struggling to understand what had just happened. He heard Sam over to his left sputtering, "Dean— what— Dean— what the _hell?"_

There was a flicker of movement at the corner of Dean's eye, and he turned his head to see Crowley standing between the pair of trees. With a little old lady. A little old lady with her gray hair in a bun, and her reading-glasses propped up on her hair.

Ziphius, the angel who had chased and tortured and nearly killed Castiel, that terrible night in Nebraska. Ziphius, the angel who'd been assisting Calcariel with his plan to awaken the magma elemental underneath Yellowstone, to blow North America sky-high and "purify the Earth" of all life.

And now Dean suddenly remembered...

Ziphius and Calcariel had been _working with demons_.

They had been making deals with demons. Signing contracts that had lots of clauses. Crowley's specialty.

Crowley had said, _I've got some associates..._

_... I've got some associates who can handle grace safely._

"Oh no," said Dean, his heart sinking.

"Oh yes," said Crowley, beaming. "And here I thought I was going to be introducing you all to each other! But as soon as I came to Ziphius with my proposal, imagine my surprise when he, or she — whatever, Ziphius, I can never keep my pronouns straight with you angels — imagine my surprise when she/he said you're all acquainted already! It sounds like you've already had quite the bonding experience together. Escaping from magma elementals at the last second! You must all feel like brothers in arms, I suppose? Or sisters. Whatever."

Ziphius seemed to be paying very little attention to Crowley's speech. The second he'd stopped talking she tilted her sweet grandmotherly face to the sky and spoke one word. One strange, long word, and a tremendous bolt of lightning split the sky with a thundering crack and shattered a nearby tree very close to Dean. The poor tree was nearly split in half, several great branches and half its trunk peeling away with an echoing crash. The remaining half of the tree began smoldering, little bursts of flame wisping up its bark.

"Holy _shit_," gasped Sam. Dean couldn't even speak; he was half deafened from the noise, his head ringing, his vision nearly whited out.

He had to blink a few times just to get his vision back, and then he saw Crowley backing away as Ziphius pulled something out of her pocket and held it up: a little vial of glass filled with a swirling bluish-white light. It was glowing with an eerie radiance. An angel's grace.

"I believe I have something that you want," said Ziphius. "And I believe you will negotiate with me."

"And I believe I'm done here," said Crowley, and he disappeared.

* * *

><p><em>AN - Ah, you knew it wasn't going easy, right? (mwa ha ha ha ha...)_

_BTW - Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter - I was swamped with holidays and finishing up my holiday fic A Winter's Tale (another platonic SPN fic, if any of you are interested). So I had to table Broken till Winter's Tale was done. Winter's Tale is all finished now, and apart from a few Flight epilogues, Broken is now my main active fic and will update at least weekly through Jan-Feb-March-April. _

_If you are enjoying this, please let me know! And if you had a favorite scene or favorite idea or favorite bit of dialogue, please let me know what it was!_


	3. The Man From Corporate

_A/N - I wrote this chapter originally for Flight while driving by the Gates Of The Arctic National Park. And it occurred to me: since Forgotten introduced us to Grand Teton National Park,_ _ Flight and its sister fic Broken ought to continue the national-parks theme! But with a new park. :)_

* * *

><p>Ziphius strolled between Sam and Dean's two trees and walked several paces in front of them, swinging the little glowing vial from one hand as she gazing quietly out at the landscape. Dean's vision finally cleared enough for him to take a real look around, and he realized there was a stunning view before them.<p>

They were on a small grassy mountaintop that was dotted here and there with sparse, puffy-looking pines. Sam and Dean were tied to two side-by-side pine trees that were about fifteen feet apart, coils of rope wrapped tightly all around their arms, chests and legs. Ahead of them stood rank upon rank of mountains, almost every one of which had a picture-postcard red-colored butte rearing up out of the top of the mountain toward the sky. The base of each mountain was a patchwork of dark-green conifers interlaced with the last of the fall foliage, in vivid reds and yellows.

The dramatic red buttes, dusty-green conifers, and red-and-yellow fall leaves all seemed almost fantastically colorful against the crystal blue sky.

In fact... where the heck had that lightning come from? There weren't any clouds overhead. The sky was a seamless bowl of deep blue.

"Where are we?" said Sam, his voice tense as he looked around.

"Zion National Park," said Ziphius serenely, still looking at the view.

"Ziphius in Zion?" said Dean. He laughed. "Seriously? Shouldn't you be zooming around on a zebra, or something?"

Ziphius turned around, her pleasant grandmotherly face creased with a scowl. "Zion refers to the city of the righteous," she said, her voice icy. "And this state of yours that we're in, Utah, is one of the few places on this entire continent where the mice still believe in God."

"Oh, right," said Dean. "We're all 'mice' to you. Mice that outsmarted you, last time, if I remember right."

Sam shot a half-angry, half-desperate look at Dean — it meant _Don't piss her off, _Dean knew. But Ziphius didn't rise to the bait. She just kept swinging the vial of Cas's grace around with one hand, twirling it around her finger as she said, "This really is one of the few places on this entire continent where I feel even slightly at home. I thought it would be a more fitting base of operations than our last location."

Dean, unable to resist trying to needle her, said, "Yeah, the Tetons didn't really work out too well for Calcariel, huh?"

Dean's last glimpse of that moment was still vivid in his memory: the angel Calcariel pinned in a tentacle of molten lava, his flaming wings beating the air in desperation. A blinding flash of light had followed, so bright that Dean had been forced to close his eyes.

There'd been nothing left of Calcariel afterwards but a few bits of drifting feather-ash.

Ziphius looked away at the mention of Calcariel.

"So," she said, after a short pause, tucking a wisp of gray hair behind her reading-glasses, "Crowley told me you two were searching for Castiel's grace. The grace of a dead angel does have certain uses; I can imagine why you might want it."

Dean slapped a neutral expression onto his face as quick as he could.

_Ziphius still thought Castiel was dead._

By a mighty force of will Dean managed to avoid looking at Sam. _Ziphius must still think Cas died of hypothermia, _he realized. Hypothermia, in that Nebraska lake, over a month ago now. Cas had disappeared in the lake, and shortly afterwards Sam and Dean had managed to blow Ziphius away with a banishing sigil. Ziphius must never have realized that they'd rescued Cas from the lake right afterwards.

Dean's thoughts were suddenly racing. If Ziphius thought Cas was dead, maybe Ziphius could be convinced to give up Cas's grace? Maybe Dean could pull off some kind of clever deal? Maybe they could even get back to bunker soon... before Cas got back, even?

And at that point Dean realized that Castiel was going to come home to the bunker in about fifteen minutes... and would find it empty. With Sam and Dean mysteriously gone.

Ever since Nebraska— well, ever since Wyoming, really— Cas had been having a lot of nightmares about Dean and Sam vanishing.

Dean groaned inwardly, thinking, _We've got to get that grace and get out of here and get home quick_.

As if she'd heard his thoughts, Ziphius held up the little glowing vial again. She said, "Crowley said you were looking for this, and he had a fairly good idea where it was; I must say, demonic associates do come in handy at times. And since I seem to be one of the few angels left with full power of flight, I managed to get there and get hold of it before anybody else put the puzzle pieces together. Though I don't know what Metatron was thinking, really; it was inside the Fukushima reactor core, of all places! Perhaps he assumed it wouldn't be noticed there." Sam and Dean both gave little gasps at this revelation, and Ziphius looked up at them in annoyance, saying, "Oh, don't worry, you simpletons, it's not radioactive. The grace is immune. The grace even protected the little vial it's encased in. An angel's grace is well known to be a potent source of healing, you know. You could heal any fatal illness with this, in fact. Or you could even resurrect somebody. Or, you could make quite a wide patch of land fertile and productive. You could have healthy herds, abundant crops, fabulous yields of fruit. Presumably you want the grace for some such reason?"

"Yeah, we had some plans to take up farming, actually," said Dean. "To be honest we've been getting tired of hunting. Thought we'd get some rangeland... run a few hundred head..."

"I was gonna plant some fruit trees," put in Sam.

"Maybe some honeybees," said Dean.

"This will work _excellently_," said Ziphius, holding up the grace again. "Abundant yields of honey, bumper crops of olives, and your camels and goats will be blessed with fertility."

"Perfect," said Dean. "I'd been kind of worrying about my camels' fertility, to be honest."

Sam nodded and added, "Yeah, the goats really need to get it on a bit more, too."

"Well, then, this is just what you need!" said Ziphius cheerfully. "And you'll find my terms quite reasonable. All I ask in return is that I and my superior take over your bodies." She smiled sweetly. "Quite a bargain, don't you think? We're even willing to give you control back for an hour a day, so as to make it worthwhile for you to be able to use the grace. An hour a day ought to be sufficient to milk your camels and goats, yes?"

"Uh... no," said Dean. "Actually, that isn't going to work."

"Really?" said Ziphius, looking surprised. "But... how much time per day do you need to milk your hoofstock?" She thought a moment and suggested, "We _might_ be able to give you two hours per day."

"We kind of need twenty-four hours a day, actually," said Sam.

Ziphius frowned. "How many camels do you have, exactly?"

"We have _ten thousand camels_," said Dean.

"And _five thousand goats_," said Sam.

Ziphius's eyebrows raised. "You're rather wealthier than I'd realized," she said, glancing at the grace again. "Still, though, this one grace should be able to bless even that many hoofstock. Assuming you pack the animals together tightly and open the grace in the geometric center of the herd."

"Look, Ziff," said Dean, "Possession isn't an option here. But how about if we—"

Ziphius cut him off. "I'll be frank. This is the only option." She put her hands on her hips, the grace still dangling from one hand, and she stood there a moment, looking back and forth between Sam and Dean. A hawk screamed in the distance as if on cue, as she stood there with the amazing Zion mountain landscape spread out behind her.

Ziphius said, her voice suddenly cold, "Need I remind you: you are mice. And the tedious details of your camel-and-goat lives are indescribably boring. And the ONLY reason I ever bother to speak with mice at all, and the ONLY reason I'm willing to forgive your _blatant insubordination _last time we met, is that my superior and I need better vessels."

"Your _superior_?" said Dean.

"My superior was the one who negotiated with Crowley," said Ziphius. "My superior can't fly as well as I — her wings are damaged — so she let me do this on my own. We both have inadequate vessels and we _must _have two strong vessels, in order to re-impose some order on this pathetic planet. There _must _be some sense of order; angels and humans alike have been utterly ignoring the rules. And, to put it plainly, she has given me my orders, and I have to obey them. So. Your bodies, with two hours per day of camel-milking time allowed to each of you, in return for the grace."

"_Absolutely not_," snapped Sam.

Dean said, "Sorry to disappoint you, but we've both been down this path before and that's a big fat nope for both of us."

"Perhaps I haven't made myself clear," said Ziphius. She touched a little blue glass pendant that was hanging around her neck, glanced up at the sky and spoke that strange word again, twice; and this time two blasts of lightning came shattering down out of the clear blue sky, pulverizing two more pines nearby. Again Dean and Sam couldn't help cringing at the tremendous crashing sound and and the blinding flash of light. As the echoing boom faded away into the hills, Ziphius said, "You are not free. You are my prisoners. I am willing to wait until you say yes. It's simple, really: you can live out your lives tied to these two trees being struck by lightning repeatedly, every day; or you can say yes. You'll come to see that I'm offering a fair deal."

With that, she disappeared.

And a moment later she reappeared. With one hand on a puffy upholstered lavender recliner that still had a price tag dangling from one corner. Swinging the chair around till it was facing the spectacular view, Ziphius settled herself comfortably in the chair, leaned back, extended the foot-rest, put her feet up and laced her hands in her lap. "The lightning-strikes won't start hitting you directly till tomorrow," she said pleasantly, "So you can take plenty of time to think about it. Food and drink will be provided." Here she waved one hand, and two little tables appeared, one by Sam's tree and one by Dean's. Each table had a neat white lace tablecloth, a bottle of wine, a wineglass, and a painted china plate with stacks of cheese-and-salami hors d'oeuvres. Dean found that one of his hands was miraculously free from the ropes all of a sudden, and that he could reach the hors d'oeuvres easily.

But try as he might, feeling around with his free hand, he couldn't get the other ropes free from around his chest, his other arm, or his legs.

He started feeling around the back of the tree, as inconspicuously as he could, hoping to be able to undo the knots. But he couldn't even seem to feel any knots — and finally Ziphius said, without even turning around from her lavender recliner, "There are no knots, mice. It's a continuous rope. You are permanently bound to the tree. Now, why don't you both have a glass of wine and enjoy the show?"

She began twirling Castiel's grace from one finger, idly, touched the blue pendant again and spoke a long sentence in that strange language she'd used earlier. Tremendous lightning bolts began to shower down from the clear blue sky in all directions, striking every red-rock butte in view.

* * *

><p>Castiel drove the Impala up the bunker driveway a half-hour after he'd left. He parked the car precisely where Dean had had it originally, gathered a little bundle of books and dvd's to his chest, and clambered out of the car. He'd gotten "Tiktok of Oz" for Sam, yet another book about pies, and the movie "Homeward Bound." (The title had caught Castiel's eye.)<p>

Cas paused at the doorway, looking around for Dean. Surely Dean would have heard the Impala approaching? But there was no Dean in view. The bunker door was hanging open, though. This was a little unusual; Dean was usually pretty strict about keeping it locked, since the wards didn't work as well if the door were left open. Cas frowned at the open door, went inside and closed it behind him, calling, "Dean, the door was open."

No answer.

"Dean?" Castiel called again. "Sam?" He limped carefully down the little curved staircase (his feet were still battered from his Nebraska ordeal, and of course they had never healed; it always hurt a little more when going down stairs). Reaching the map table, Castiel set the books and dvd down and walked into the kitchen. Nobody was there.

He checked the library. Nobody there either— well, except little Meg the cat, who was curled up on the sofa like usual. Sam's laptop was still sitting on a side table where he'd been working earlier.

Castiel patted Meg on the head absently and glanced at the laptop. If the laptop was out and open like that, that meant Sam must be in the bunker somewhere. Sam always closed it when he went out on an errand.

Cas called again, "Sam? Dean?"

No answer.

He thought a moment and limped down the hall toward the bedrooms, moving a little faster now. He knocked on Sam's door, and on Dean's; no answer. He opened both doors cautiously, after knocking a few more times. The bedrooms were empty.

Limping even faster, Cas made his way back up the stairs and into the garage.

Nobody was in the garage either. Cas called both their names again, and looked around behind some of the larger vehicles. The garage was empty.

Cas stood a few moments in the garage, just turning in a little circle and looking around. "DEAN? SAM?" he called again, more loudly now. He waited a few moments, and then pulled out his phone and called them both. Dean first, then Sam.

No answer from either one of them.

Cas slowly put his phone back in his pocket, and thought a moment, his forehead creased with a frown now.

Then he went back into the bunker and began going through the entire bunker methodically. Room by room, even the rooms he'd already checked. The back file rooms, the front bathroom, the back bathroom, the extra dorm rooms, the lab, the cells in the basement, the indoor shooting range, all the dozens of strange little rooms; even the sub-basement and the sub-sub-basement and the great vaulted attic; everywhere. And he kept calling their names, and, now and then, trying their cell phones too.

But Sam and Dean weren't anywhere to be found. And they weren't answering their phones.

Cas tottered outside. He went out to the field where they'd been practicing the shooting; he looked around through the trees. He made his way all the way around the bunker, calling Sam's and Dean's names repeatedly, checking the side door near the kitchen, pushing his way through the brush and trees on the back side, till he got back all the way back around to the front door.

He went down to the map room again. Where he bowed his head, closed his eyes, and muttered "Wake up," to himself.

Castiel opened his eyes and looked around, and called, "Dean? Sam?" again.

No answer.

He sat down and put both hands over his eyes. He sat very quietly for a long moment, and then said again, to himself, "Wake _up."_

He opened his eyes. Looked around. Called Dean's and Sam's names one more time.

Castiel repeated this routine several times — closing his eyes and saying "Wake up" to himself, and then looking around again.

He began to whisper "No," now and then, in between the "Wake up's".

After a while he gave up with the "Wake up" efforts and sat there for several minutes, staring at the map table, his mouth tight.

Then he searched all the rooms in the bunker a second time.

And a third.

* * *

><p>An hour later Castiel was sitting in the library with Meg on his lap, petting her over and over. She was purring, and she didn't seem to mind the string of little questions that Cas was asking her. Just one question at a time, in a low, quiet voice, as he kept petting her:<p>

The first question was, "Perhaps the pies weren't up to standard?"

He kept petting Meg; and Meg purred.

The second question: "Did I fall asleep too often during the movies? I could have tried harder to stay awake... "

More petting. Meg purred.

On the third question his voice dropped to a whisper: "Maybe I interrupted Dean too often at his work?" A pause; then, "Maybe I was annoying him..."

On and on. Had Castiel driven the Impala badly? Was Sam annoyed from having to make so many meals? Was it too much work to help Cas change the bandages on his feet? Had Cas been using too much hot water? Was Sam tired of reading the Oz books to Cas? Was Dean tired of having to stay up late with Cas on the couch?

Had they both just... gotten tired of him?

Meg had no answers. She just kept purring.

Castiel sat there a long time with Meg. He eventually ran out of questions and just sat there, petting his little fluffy cat and holding her close. At last he rose, gently setting Meg back on the couch. He gathered some ingredients from the Men of Letters herbarium, got a knife from the kitchen, and went down to Crowley's old cell. There, he knelt at the edge of the devil's trap that was already on the floor, lit the necessary herbs, cut his hand and let the blood drip into the bowl, and said an incantation.

Crowley appeared in a puff of smoke.

"Ah!" said Crowley. "Castiel! It's been so long! Just ages since we tried to take over the world together! And we hardly ever got to chat when we were housemates, here in the bunker. We just had such different schedules. How've you been? You know, we've really got to stay in touch more — are you on Facebook?"

"Where are they?" said Castiel, his trademark low growl even lower.

Crowley looked blank. "Where are who?"

"Sam and Dean. Tell me where they are." Cas took a step closer, his fists clenched. "Did you do something? Or... if you didn't... " His voice wavered. "...can you just... find out where they went?"

"I, personally, did not do a thing other than fulfill the contract that I signed," said Crowley stiffly. "Because I actually honor my agreements. My word actually means something. _Unlike some people I could name._ Now, what are you blathering about?"

"I came home and... they... weren't... here," said Cas unsteadily.

"Well, my dear lad, maybe they nipped out to the pub, did you consider that?"

"I have the car. And none of the other vehicles are gone."

"Hm. In that case they must have been forced to run cross-country in order to get away from you. Maybe they hitchhiked!"

Cas just looked at him.

Crowley gave a little snort of laughter at Cas's expression, glanced down at the floor and shook his head, muttering to himself, "It's like kicking a puppy. No challenge to it at all." He looked up at Cas and said, "I've advised those two boys often enough to ditch you, or better still, kill you. Can't imagine why they haven't taken my advice. But I just have one question for you: Is that Dean's car key in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Cas blinked. He stuck his hand into his pocket, pulled out the Impala key, and gazed at it blankly.

Cas said slowly, "It's... the car key. But... why would I be happy to see you?"

Crowley let out another little snort of laughter and shook his head again. "Even a puppy would figure this out faster. Do try to keep up, Castiel: I really don't know if Dean would leave YOU, but _would he leave that car_?"

Castiel drew in a soft breath and stared down at the key again. His fist closed around the key, and his face brightened, as Crowley went on, "Though I guess he could find another car he liked as much... but... it seems like _lightning never strikes twice_! Heh heh!" Crowley was suddenly speaking in strangely over-enunciated, exaggerated voice. "Anyway, you shouldn't worry too much; you shouldn't make a _mountain_ out of a molehill!"

Cas tore his eyes off the key and looked up at Crowley, puzzled.

Crowley added, raising his eyebrows a little and leaning toward Cas, " I know it must seem like a..._ bolt from the blue... _for them to vanish like this, but wherever they are I'm sure they're having a positively... _electrifying... _time."

Cas scowled at him. "What are you talking about, Crowley?"

Crowley rolled his eyes. "_Castiel_," he said. He gave a big sigh, and said, "Casti_-el_, Casti-_el_, Casti-_el_," as if Cas were a slightly annoying toddler who had tried his patience one time too many. "Lightning! Bolt from the blue! Electrifying! Mountains! Are you with me?"

Cas frowned at him again.

Crowley stared back for a moment, and then spread his arms and snapped, "How can I accidentally drop some unintentional clues if you're _not paying attention?_ Do I have to draw you a _map_?"

"You're giving me... clues?" said Cas hesitantly.

"_Trying _to, yes. Though you're not making it easy. "

"But... why would you help me?" said Cas, narrowing his eyes. "That doesn't make sense."

Crowley dropped his arms and said bluntly, "Look, Cas dear, let's just say the Weather Channel was getting more and more interesting over the last few months. I had an opportunity to get free and I took it, but, truth be told, I'd really rather _not _have another high-powered angel trying to take over the planet. Last time that didn't really go so well, did it?"

"Another... high-powered angel?"

"Whenever any of you angels get the least bit of power in your hands, you always seem to get this obsession for either killing half of Creation or just plain wiping the planet clean, and how can I make deals for people's souls if there are no people left?" Crowley stuck his hands in his pockets and gave a big shrug, saying, "You're definitely not my favorite pony but it appears you're the only other horse in the race at the moment. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't, right?" He burst out into a cackle of laughter, adding, "Silly me! It's more like, better the angel-with-delusions-of-grandeur you know than the angel-with-delusions-of-grandeur you don't! Ha ha!" He broke up in laughter for a moment, and then finally wiped his eyes and continued, "Anyway, you should just sit down and relax and maybe watch some tv. Have you ever watched the Weather Channel? It's quite entertaining. Channel 44, just by the way. Now if you'll excuse me I've got a Hell to run."

And he vanished in a puff of red smoke.

Cas thought a moment, and then turned to Crowley's TV— which was still sitting against the wall of the dungeon cell— and flipped to the Weather Channel. He had to settle down in Crowley's leather swivel chair and wait patiently through a half-hour special on the freakish hurricane season before the weather update finally rolled around. Then a well-groomed weather newscaster was saying "And if the hurricanes weren't enough, for tonight's visual, let's take you to Utah. Get a load of this footage, folks!" The screen switched to a scene of mountains illuminated by a stunning display of lightning that seemed to be happening in broad daylight with no clouds at all - dozens of different lightning bolts spearing down through the sky all at once. The newscaster said, "We seem to have an intense lightning storm parked right over Zion National Park. This is really quite unusual - lightning with no visible clouds! Just look at the spectacle!"

The perky blond newscaster sitting next to him added, "Maybe somebody up there doesn't like national parks?"

Both newscasters broke up into peals of merry laughter.

Castiel stared at the little map on the screen for a moment, and turned the tv off.

* * *

><p>Cas didn't bother to clean up the runes and ashes from the summoning spell. He just limped hurriedly upstairs and to his room, where he opened his closet door and pulled out the little cardboard cat-carrier. Meg was sleeping on the library sofa again; he scooped her up gently and tucked her into the little carrier before she was even fully awake, saying, "I'm sorry, Meg. Hopefully this won't be for long."<p>

Next Cas limped to Dean's room, and Sam's room, and the library, accumulating a little pile of assorted objects that he dumped hastily into a duffel bag. Spare clothes (his own, and some of Sam's, and some of Dean's, and a few extra FBI suits just in case); Sam's laptop; some extra guns and ammo; and the first aid supplies. Last, Cas checked his pocket, counted the money Dean had given him earlier in the day, and looked at his "Cas T.L. Winchester" Kansas driver's license for a long moment.

Finally he picked up the duffel and the cat carrier (with Meg inside) and limped out of the bunker, closing and locking the door behind him.

He used all the cash Dean had given him to pre-pay for a week's boarding for Meg at Lebanon's little veterinary clinic. The next stop was the library, where Cas checked out a road atlas of the western United States, and a guide to Zion National Park.

Soon he was on on his way to I-70.

An hour later Cas finally remembered to glance at the gas gauge, and he flinched; the needle was right on "E". He'd learned, nearly a year ago now, when he'd first been working at that Gas-n-Sip in Idaho, that "E" stood for Empty.

And he'd spent all his cash on Meg.

He pulled the car over at the next exit and bowed his head, his eyes closed, frowning. Thinking.

"What would Sam and Dean do?" he muttered to himself.

* * *

><p>Freddy, the young teenage attendant at the Gas-n-Sip by I-70 in Colby, Kansas, didn't even notice the man in the suit at first. Just some guy. Some corporate type in a suit, walking a little slowly. But the man began making his way through the store staring at everything in a rather intense way that was a bit worrisome. He also had some rough-looking bruises on his face, and was limping a bit. Freddy was just starting to wonder if the guy could be bad news when the man walked right up to the counter and said, in an intimidating gravelly voice:<p>

"The bathrooms are _filthy_. The women's is out of toilet paper and _both _are out of hand soap. The rotating hot dogs look like they've been there since yesterday — you absolutely must discard them, and put out fresh ones — and the blue slushee machine is empty. And just look at that counter!" He gestured over to the coffee-and-muffin area. "It's completely covered in crumbs and stains. And look at this floor! When's the last time you even mopped it? And why hasn't that burned-out light bulb been replaced? Do you really expect to be considered for a promotion to Regional Sales Associate if this is the way you run your store?"

"W-what?" said Freddy, a little rattled.

The man flipped a little id card at him rapidly— too rapidly for Freddy to get a clear look— and said, "I'm from corporate. Surprise inspection. Let's take the problems one at a time: You know perfectly well that all Gas-n-Sip attendants are required to check the bathrooms _every hour_. Let me see the hourly checklist." He held out a hand.

"Oh... _damn_," muttered Freddy, fumbling for the checklist clipboard under the counter. "Um, I was just about to do that, but, it's been busy, and—"

"It's not busy _at all_," snapped the man, grabbing the checklist clipboard from him. He flicked briskly through the papers with the air of someone who knew Gas-n-Sip paperwork inside and out, immediately found the bathroom hourly checklist and scanned it with a frown. "Look at this," he said, flipping the clipboard around and pointing out the offending page to Freddy. "You only checked the bathrooms _once_ this morning. You know you have to check those rooms hourly at a minimum."

"Yes, sir," said Freddy, "I'm sorry, sir, I was going to, but, the slushee machine broke and I couldn't get it running again and—"

"You have the valve setting wrong."

"But it spills all over me if I put it in the way it says in the manual—"

"You have to fill it halfway, THEN put the main container in, THEN fill it the rest of the way. Here, I'll show you."

The man from corporate showed Freddy how to refill the blue slushee machine, and how to adjust the hot-dog roller temperature, and stood over him while Freddy wiped the counters clean.

Then the man from corporate sent him to clean both bathrooms. By the time Freddy emerged, the man from corporate was just finishing taking a sample of gas from each one of the four tanks, filling a series of 5-gallon containers. "We need several samples. We have to test the octane levels periodically," the man from corporate explained. "Here, I'll sign off for the number of gallons I'm taking." He scribbled a completely illegible scrawl on the gas-sales checksheet.

"And _one more thing_," the man from corporate added balefully, and Freddy cringed as he realized the man from corporate was starting to fill out one of the dreaded "inspection" forms at the back of the clipboard. The man from corporate said, his voice getting even more gravelly and even more intimidating, "I checked your till and inventories. The till's short _a hundred dollars_, and you're also off on your food and drink inventory. Looks like somebody's walked off with a whole trunkful of food. And the missing hundred dollars is quite serious."

"Oh, no, _really? Seriously?_" said Freddy, feeling panicky now, for he'd thought the till and inventory were both correct. "I swear I didn't know! I _swear _I didn't take anything. Look, I might not have been cleaning every hour but I'm _not _a thief, I swear I'm not!"

The man from corporate just looked at him. It turned out he had a pretty intimidating stare, and Freddy suddenly found himself begging, "_Please, _sir. I _really_ need this job. I really do."

Freddy saw him blink, and saw his blue eyes soften.

"I'll let it pass just this one time," said the man from corporate. "Here, I'll sign off on the discrepancies." He added some illegible scrawls to the day-end till tally, and the day-end inventory sheet. "There you go," he said. "But just know we'll be keeping an eye on you."

"Oh jeez, _thanks_, man! I mean, thank you, _sir,_" said Freddy, feeling incredibly relieved. "Thank you _so much_. I swear I won't let you down."

"Life as a sales associate is quite a serious responsibility, you know," said the man from corporate, still filling out the inspection form. "The _entire store_ is in your care. Thousands of people eat the food that _you_ prepare."

"I know. I know. I got it. I'll do better, I promise."

The man from corporate glanced up at him for a moment, and finally gave him a little smile.

Freddy said, feeling a little bolder now, "Hey, are those bruises on your face okay? You need any band-aids or anything?"

"Oh, I just... fought off an attacker recently. Just part of the life," said the man from corporate, waving a hand casually. He turned his attention back to the inspection form, signed it with another completely illegible flourish and handed the clipboard back to Freddy, saying, "The Gas-n-Sip life can be a hard one, son. Not everybody's cut out for it. But human society depends on places like this all doing their part. You're providing sustenance and respite for travelers, and that's an honorable role, and don't let anybody ever tell you different."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," said Freddy, a little awed now, for now he was picturing how the man from corporate must have fought off a gang of Gas-n-Sip thieves all by himself, to end up with all those bruises and cuts on his face. The man from corporate gave him one last nod, and strode outside. Freddy followed him out and watched as the man from corporate loaded the gas canisters into his snappy-looking black car. He paused at the car door, looked back at Freddy and said, "Change that light bulb, son. We're counting on you."

Freddy nodded mutely, and the man from corporate got into his gleaming black car and drove west, into the sunset.

* * *

><p><em>AN - I hadn't planned that last bit at all. I had Cas drop off Meg but then realized, while writing the next paragraph, that he now had no cash and no way to buy any gas. Cas suddenly came up with the solution on his own._

_If you are liking this or have comments, please let me know! I really really love to hear from you!_


	4. Ziphius in Zion

_A/N - Sorry for the late update - had to work late at work every day last week. WARNING: Nastiness ahead. Those of you who read Forgotten may remember it had some disturbing torture scenes and several scenes of heavy-duty physical suffering. That miserable theme continues here._

* * *

><p>The lightning storm in Zion National Park went on all night in a relentless barrage of noise and light. At first it was terrifying, then just impressive, and then gradually it just got annoying. Eventually the endless blasts of light and thunder started to give Dean a headache. As the sun set and the long night began to settle in, Dean started to shiver with cold.<p>

It was late November, after all; winter wasn't all that far away. He glanced at Sam — they'd been trading unhappy glances periodically— and saw that Sam was looking pretty cold too, his shoulders hunched and his free arm wrapped tight around his chest.

_This may get unpleasant_, Dean realized.

And finally he allowed himself to consider praying to Cas.

They'd learned, in Wyoming, that though Cas was human he still could sometimes hear prayers. But poor Cas was so weak right now. Dean hated to call on him— because, what could Cas even do, realistically? Ziphius had nearly killed Cas last time they'd met. A mortal human, like Cas was now, going up against a full-powered angel was very poor odds no matter how you cut it. Even if the mortal human had once been an angel himself.

But as the hours dragged on Dean realized they had few other options.

Finally Dean took a breath and thought, _All right. Prayer time_. Sam glanced over at him; Dean shot him a hard glance, hoping Sam would be able to guess what Dean was doing just from his expression. And maybe take some hope from it.

Dean closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind enough to be able to pray.

But just then, as he stood there with his eyes closed about to start praying to Cas, he heard Ziphius snap her fingers. There was a little _whoosh _of fire, and a surge of warm air all around him. Dean's eyes snapped open and he saw that two neat circles of short yellow flames had sprung up around him and Sam, a perfect circle of flame around Dean (and Dean's tree), and another perfect circle of flame around Sam too (and Sam's tree).

"Um..." said Sam, from the other tree, "Is that holy fire? Because, I hate to break it to you, but we're not angels."

"Yeah, holy fire's kind of unnecessary," said Dean. _Regular fire hurts us just fine_, he almost said— but, hm, maybe it was better not to give Ziphius any ideas.

The back of Ziphius's lavender recliner was dimly illuminated now by the little flames, and her profile was flickering into view now and then whenever she was backlit against a flash of lightning in the distance. She said, in between rolls of thunder, "Holy fire will keep you both warm. After that episode with Castiel, I realized I've got to keep a bit closer track of the temperature requirements of those fragile little bodies of yours. Also, true consent cannot be obtained from a vessel by torture, and I've been informed that losing limbs to frostbite might count as torture."

"Gee," said Dean. "I could have sworn that tying us permanently to trees and striking us with lightning counted as torture too."

"No, that's not torture," said Ziphius calmly, her face still flickering in and out of view as lightning crackled on distant buttes. "Your bodies are well within their normal temperature bounds, as best I can determine. You're standing upright, and humans are designed to stand upright. The ropes may be preventing you from leaving, but they are soft cotton and they're not cutting off circulation or causing sores. And as for being struck by lightning, rest assured you won't feel a thing. You'll be dead before you know what hit you— literally. Although—" Ziphius's voice got a little uncertain here— "... it's occurred to me, I guess you'll have to see _each other_ charred to a smoldering, stinking corpse. Repeatedly. Many times. However, I've been assured that doesn't count as direct torture."

"How about _indirect_ torture?" pointed out Sam. "Doesn't emotional torture count?"

"Psychological torture?" suggested Dean.

Sam suggested, "You know, just to be on the safe side, why don't we pause this whole experiment and consult with Amnesty International?"

"Consider this," said Ziphius, as calm as if they were discussing all this in a college ethics class. She craned her head around over the edge of the lavender recliner to look at them, the flickering lightning show still dancing on in the distance. Distant booms of thunder punctuated every sentence as she said, "All of human existence consists of suffering anyway. In fact, every time a vessel gives consent to an angel, that's virtually always because there's some unpleasant other existence the vessel is trying to escape from. Your short little pointless lives seem full to the brim with misery. So, being tied to a tree really isn't so bad." She turned back around to look at the lightning show again, adding, "It's kind of a gray area, I suppose, but my superior and I believe that consent obtained in this way will work. Let's test it, shall we?"

A moment later she added, "Oh, and," as if she'd just remembered something. She craned around again to look at them both. "Also. Holy fire blocks all angelic modes of communication. Including prayers. Just so you know. Not that there would be anybody you'd be trying to reach, of course... Just thought you'd find that interesting."

She smiled sweetly and turned back to the lightning show, and Dean and Sam exchanged a miserable glance.

"After-dinner mint?" said Ziphius, over her shoulder. "I'm told I should keep providing you with calories." Dean looked at his little table; it now had (in addition to the wine and hors d'oeuvres) two dark-chocolate mints wrapped together in a little red ribbon, tied neatly with a tiny bow on top.

* * *

><p>By dawn the whole thing had gotten so tedious that Dean had actually found himself dozing off now and then, coming awake repeatedly to find himself sagging in the ropes with his head hanging down. <em>It might not be the worst torture ever,<em> Dean thought, _but it sucks just the same._

He glanced over at Sam and saw, in the flickering lightning flashes, that Sam was chugging some of the wine.

Sam shrugged at him. "Got thirsty," he explained.

Dean sighed. Truth was he was damn thirsty too, but he always felt skittish when angels offered food or drink. Especially angels that wanted to claim his body.

But what were he and Sam supposed to do? Just die of thirst and starvation?

Soon he found himself glancing every couple of minutes at the cheese-and-salami hors d'oeuvres and the little chocolate mints. And the wine... In fact, he realized, he was just about dying of thirst. He held out as long as he could, trying to focus on escaping, trying to come up with some kind of a plan. And wriggling around now and then and trying to work the ropes down his chest. But no plan came to mind at all, and the ropes simply weren't budging.

A seemingly infinite amount of time later, the sky began to lighten, and when the sun broke over the horizon, Ziphius said brightly, "Good morning, vessels! Coffee? Water? I'm told you have to imbibe these beverages periodically?" Dean looked down at the little table and saw that it now held, in addition to the wine and the hors d'oeuvres and the little chocolate mints, a big steaming mug of coffee and a glass of sparkling water. At the sight of the glass of water Dean folded; he suddenly he found he'd picked up the water glass and was chugging the whole thing down the in one huge desperate swallow. And then having some coffee. And some hors d'oeuvres.

And a mint.

Okay, so he'd eaten. And drunk. He'd accepted food and drink offered by an evil angel. Did that commit him to anything? Could it have been poisoned somehow?

No way to know. Dean sighed.

Well, at least he didn't have to take a leak or anything. Sam and Dean had both experienced quite an appalling variety of kidnappings-and-imprisonments over their lives, and the realities of bathroom needs, when you were tied up like this, could get very depressing. At least that didn't seem to be a problem this time. Though... as Dean thought about it, and added up the hours mentally, he realized Ziphius must somehow be magically taking care of that too. Which actually _was _depressing.

Not to mention creepy and gross, when you thought about it.

Dean decided not to think about it.

"So, mice," said Ziphius, once they'd both eaten and drunk a little. "Now that you've had the night to think about it, what do you say? The grace in exchange for your bodies?"

"Nope," said Dean. "No deal."

He saw Ziphius raise one hand, and heard her start to say something.

Dean blinked, and raised his head, startled to find that his head was suddenly hanging down — and that Ziphius was suddenly standing right in front of him with her hand on his cheek. The sun had somehow jumped a little higher in the sky. There was a nauseating smell of roasting meat in the air, a little like barbecued pork, and a smoking tree branch was lying just a few feet away that hadn't been there before. And Sam was calling desperately, his voice ragged and hoarse, "DEAN? DEAN?"

Dean looked over at Sam, and was shocked to see that Sam's face was ashen and streaked with tears. Damn, it looked like he was _shaking_. What the hell had happened? Sam said, "Oh, god, Dean, _are you okay?"_

"Yeah, sure," said Dean. He felt a little disoriented; it seemed like maybe he'd fallen asleep for a moment. "I'm fine. Did... did something happen?"

"Oh, nothing much," said Ziphius. "Just five direct lightning strikes while your body burned to a cinder. Though your fellow vessel here, your brother, seemed to get more distressed than seems reasonable. Would you like to see what it was like?"

"Uh. No. No," said Dean. But Ziphius was turning toward Sam and raising one hand. Sam cringed and shut his eyes, and Dean yelled, "NO! I SAID NO! PLEASE!" But Ziphius spoke that awful word again, that weird word that seemed to somehow summon lightning, and a terrifyingly bright blaze of lightning shattered the air and shot right down onto Sam's tree.

Ziphius didn't resurrect Sam till quite a few minutes later. By then Dean had closed his eyes and was just shaking there in the ropes, just as Sam had been earlier, his hands clenched, waiting desperately to hear Sam's voice again. And trying to breathe through his mouth to avoid the smell. Dean was certain he'd never be able to eat barbecued pork again in his life.

* * *

><p>And with that, it was officially no longer bearable. It had officially turned hideous. <em>Yes, this counts as torture<em>, Dean thought, over and over, trying to get the hideous image out of his head of what had just happened to Sam. Sam was fine now, and at least Ziphius had told the truth about it not hurting, but for the next hour Dean couldn't help watching Sam almost nonstop, just to reassure himself that Sam was really okay. And Sam kept watching him too, likely for the same reason.

All afternoon, they kept struggling with the ropes fruitlessly, and exchanging their limited array of code words. "Is that a spider on me? Do you see a spider?" Dean said at one point— this was code for "Do you see anything within my reach that could help me get free?"

He was hoping Sam would say "Yeah, near your left hand" or "By your knee" or something helpful.

But Sam just shook his head and said quietly, "I don't see any spider."

Code for, _I don't see anything you can reach that would help._

Later they started telling quiet little jokes and stories to each other till Ziphius barked at them to shut up. So finally they resorted to just exchanging meaningful glances: one would raise his eyebrows a little, with a tiny shrug: _Do you want to consider saying yes?_ And the other would shake his head firmly: _Never._

They seemed to be agreed.

_Never._

* * *

><p>Dean was beginning to realize that they might even end up hanging here on the tree forever. Dean might have to watch Sam die over, and over, and over again. And Sam would have to watch Dean die too.<p>

He found himself thinking of Castiel.

Cas was probably the only person on the planet who would truly miss them, after all.

The thought of Cas left alone again made Dean's chest hurt.

Cas must have realized hours ago that they were gone. And Cas wouldn't know what had happened. What would he think? Would he know to search for them? Would he have any idea _where_ to search for them? Not likely; Cas would really have no way of knowing that he should be looking for a lightning storm in the Utah mountains. So, Sam and Dean would never come back... and Cas would live maybe a few more months, his health decaying... and that would be that.

_Just like I thought at Thanksgiving_, Dean realized. All of two goddam days ago.

_If they're my family, then they'll die._

For a moment the whole Thanksgiving scene seemed to come to life again before him: Dean talking on and on about his ridiculous Han Solo theory, squirting so much whipped cream onto his slice of pumpkin pie that the pie slice had disappeared completely under a huge mound of white; Sam grinning and shaking his head, cutting up some berry pie; and Cas, just sitting there gazing at Dean, slowly eating his own slice of pumpkin pie, forkful by forkful. And looking totally blank about the Han Solo thing, which must have made no sense at all to him. But Cas had just let Dean go on and on, just listening to him ramble, watching him peacefully.

_If I ever did get to Heaven, maybe that's what my Heaven would be_, Dean thought. _Sitting there at that table with Sam and Cas. Sam looking so happy... And Cas there too..._

_And working on the Impala and then looking up to find that Cas has limped in and he's sitting by that workbench just to keep me company. _

_Keeping me company, and watching over me. And everything's okay._

Ziphius killed them both again at noon; and again four hours later.

* * *

><p>Now and then they heard cars going by, not far below their hilltop.<p>

Ziphius noticed Dean looking around once, at the sound of a not-so-distant car, and said, "It's just employees vacating the visitor's center. This is the best viewpoint, you know, so there's a whole visitor's center just down the hill. But there's really no reason to let the mice have the best view, so I took over this little area and sent several lightning bolts onto the path that leads up here. Now even the employees are leaving. I suppose the park has probably closed. It's almost like mice are afraid of a little lightning." She gave a chipper little laugh.

For hours now she'd been just sitting in the recliner with apparently infinite patience, twirling Castiel's grace around in one hand, fiddling with a little blue-glass pendant around her neck occasionally, and sipping from a glass of white wine that had appeared in mid-afternoon on a little wicker table by her recliner. But now, as the sun began to sink toward the horizon, Ziphius stood from her recliner, and took a few steps away from Sam and Dean, gazing out at the view again. The lightning display was continuing unabated.

And then, in between the cracks of thunder, Dean heard the Impala.

Sam and Dean looked at each other instantly, and then just-as-instantly looked away from each other again, trying to pretend they hadn't recognized the Impala's distinctive throaty growl. But Dean knew there there couldn't be many other cars on the road these days with that unique rough rumble. It had to be the Impala, didn't it? _And if it's really the Impala it's got to be Cas, _Dean thought, hoping it wasn't obvious to Ziphius how hard his heart was suddenly pounding, how much his breathing had sped up. _Maybe Cas figured out where we were, somehow. We're, what, a day's drive from Kansas? If he figured it out last night... and started driving right away... It fits. It fits._

Then Dean thought, _But what the hell can he possibly do?_

"It's going to be a spectacular sunset, don't you think?" Ziphius said, watching the sun sink toward the horizon. "In fact... let's just enjoy the sunset a moment, shall we?" She spoke a long, complicated sentence in the lightning-language, and all the lightning stopped completely as Ziphius gazed out at the western horizon. The last rolls of thunder faded away into a weirdly deafening silence. In the sudden quiet Dean heard the cheeps of a nearby sparrow, and the sound of a soft breeze sighing through the bushy, gnarled pines. The sky seemed bizarrely empty, just clear blue sky overhead, with a soft band of orange where the sun was sinking toward the horizon.

Dean could no longer hear the Impala. Maybe Cas had parked it?

Or had it not been the Impala at all?

But several minutes later, a tiny motion in Dean's peripheral vision drew his attention. He risked a glance to the side, looking at the trees at the edge of the meadow to his right, and there was Castiel.

He was just visible at the edge of the clearing, peering at Ziphius from behind a broad, gnarled pine tree.

Dean didn't dare move a muscle, and didn't dare turn his head to look at Sam. He watched Cas intently, hardly daring to breathe. Cas, for his part, didn't even glance at Sam or Dean; he was completely focused on Ziphius. He slowly lifted one hand, and Dean saw that he had an angel-blade in one hand, and was preparing for a throw.

_He's got to be more than fifty yards away_, thought Dean. _Too far. And Ziphius has stopped angel-blades before. But she's looking away this time— Cas has a chance at taking her by surprise— getting her in the back—_

Cas aimed.

He paused.

He threw.

The blade whipped through the air right at Ziphius's back. It was a perfect throw, clean and straight, the blade just a spinning blur in the air —

And the blade stopped in mid-air, the point one inch from Ziphius's back, just hovering there. Ziphius turned around, smiled at the hovering blade, plucked it out of the air, and tucked it into the waistband of her polyester slacks. "Well, well," she said, smiling broadly at Castiel. She flickered out of view, and reappeared in a flash directly behind Cas, clapping a hand on his shoulder as he flinched and jerked around to look at her. A moment later and Ziphius was again standing exactly where she'd been before, gazing out at the setting sun. Cas was gone. Dean looked all around the part of the meadow where Cas had been, and then heard a soft gasp and looked to his left. There was Cas, tied between two other trees on Sam's far side. Oddly, Cas wasn't tied up like Sam and Dean were, to a single tree; instead he'd been put between two trees, his arms outstretched, one wrist tied to each tree.

Dean's heart sank, and he heard Sam sigh.

"Hey, Cas," said Dean softly. Cas raised his head and looked at Dean.

"Hello, Dean. Sam," Castiel said. He looked very tired, and sad, and yet also strangely calm. He seemed completely unsurprised to have ended up tied between the two trees.

Cas said, looking both of them over carefully, "Are you both okay?"

"So far, yeah," said Dean. "Aside from being fried by lightning now and then."

"Castiel," said Ziphius, turning around to look at him, "So nice of you to join us."

Cas looked at her, and said, his voice even darker than usual, "You knew I was coming."

"Crowley told me you'd survived. I suggested it would be to his benefit if he dropped a few hints to you about where to come."

Castiel closed his eyes with a sigh.

Sam burst out with, "_Crowley! _Are you _serious?_"

Dean said to Cas, "Cas, really? _Crowley _led you here_?_ Didn't you suspect anything?_"_

Cas shrugged. "Yes, actually, but it's not like I had much choice." He looked at Dean. "I couldn't find you. At first I thought you'd both just left, but Crowley explained you wouldn't have left your car voluntarily."

_You thought I'd leave YOU but not the CAR? _Dean thought.

All he could say was a soft, "Cas... "

Ziphius took a few steps toward Cas. "Castiel," she said, "I've got to ask. What on earth were you thinking? You must have known you couldn't possibly defeat me. You're _mortal_, Castiel. Even if I hadn't already known you were very likely on your way, I can sense all mortals who are anywhere near me. What kind of shoddy plan was that, anyway?"

Cas still looked strangely calm. "It was Plan Z," he said, with a casual little shrug. "It seemed better than nothing."

"Well, no, Castiel," said Ziphius, laughing now. "It was worse than nothing. Worse for you, at least. Because you already did this _exact same _Plan Z in the Tetons. These two vessels here were tied up, back there, and you came to rescue them, a couple months ago, didn't you? I thought perhaps it might work again, and I was right." She smiled, and added, "Except this time you won't be getting away."

Cas changed the topic abruptly with, "Why have you enslaved an air elemental?"

Dean's eyes widened and he exchanged a glance with Sam. An _air elemental_?

"That's none of your concern," said Ziphius with a sniff.

Castiel said, "You have more than one, don't you? I was watching the Weather Channel. You've got one in the Caribbean too, right? And a couple others?"

"The hurricanes?" Sam said. Cas glanced at him and nodded.

_The hurricanes_, thought Dean. _Hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning. Of course. It's all air. Air elementals._

Was Ziphius trying to destroy the world again? Ziphius and Calcariel had tried this before. They'd been trying to "purify" the planet by coaxing the infinitely old, infinitely dangerous "elementals", the wild entities from the dawn of time that controlled natural forces, to wipe the planet clean. The magma-elemental that lived under Yellowstone hadn't taken too kindly to Calcariel's attempts to control it, but it seemed Ziphius had found another type of elemental to work with.

"Oh jeez," Dean burst out, despite himself, "Do we have to save the friggin' world _again?" _Sam actually snorted with laughter, and even Cas managed a twisted little smile.

Ziphius scowled at him. "That is NONE OF YOUR CONCERN. The elementals have nothing to do with you. With any of you."

Castiel said, "Then what do you want with us?"

Ziphius held up the grace, and Cas's eyes widened.

"What do I want?" said Ziphius. She began to pace back and forth in front of all three of them — past Dean, then Sam, then Cas; back and forth, back and forth. She said, "I want... a better vessel, partly. But mostly, I just want... ORDER. I want the rules back. I want a return to order. Nobody is following the rules anymore! Nobody is following orders! Honestly I just want things to make sense again, and I just want to have clear orders and I want to follow my orders. And, finally, I've been given orders." She stopped, just a few steps away from Castiel now, and she said, "I was ordered to enslave an air elemental, and I figured out how, and I did it. Never mind why. And I was also given orders regarding you, Castiel. So as soon as Crowley told me you were alive, I knew what I had to do. I took these two humans of yours primarily to lure you out of hiding, thinking you might behave as usually do, with your bizarre attachment to your little ducks and little mice and all. Though also I really DO want a pair of vessels, but, first, I need to carry out my orders regarding you, Castiel." She stopped pacing and turned to face Cas directly, saying, "Castiel, you know you have committed many crimes against Heaven. Do you deny this?"

Cas just looked at her.

Dean thought with sudden alarm, _Oh yeah. Ziphius was kind of obsessed with this idea of punishing Cas, back in Nebraska, wasn't she._

This felt bad all over.

"I do not deny it," said Castiel.

"Indeed," said Ziphius, beginning to pace back and forth again, "Last month, I tried to enact my own punishment on you. But I'll confess now, I felt considerable unease at the time, knowing that I was acting on my own, with no supervision. However, since then, my superior has taken a more reasoned, law-abiding approach. She has carefully considered all your crimes and considered all the possible sentences. She has consulted the decisions of old regarding rebellious angels, and she has arrived at a decision." Ziphius paused, turned to face Cas, and said, "She has decreed that you are to be broken."

Dean happened to be watching Cas's face as Ziphius said this, and he saw Cas's face go slack with shock for a moment, his eyes widening and his jaw actually dropping open slightly. Whatever "being broken" meant, clearly it wasn't good.

Cas said, his voice suddenly uneven, "No angel has been broken since Lucifer's fall."

"No angel since then has deserved it," replied Ziphius. She paused, studying Cas with an almost clinical expression. Her voice went quiet as she said, "I'm sorry."

Cas shook his head slowly.

He said to Ziphius, "You don't know the feeling."

Dean blinked, suddenly remembering the angel Anna saying that exact sentence once..._ to Castiel_. Back when Castiel had been just another an obedient angel. An obedient soldier of God, who always followed his orders.

"And," added Cas, "I have no wings anyway. I'm already broken."

"No, Castiel," said Ziphius, "You're human. That's different. You must be _truly _broken, in the traditional way. Those are my orders," and in one smooth motion she tossed the little glowing vial into the air— the vial that held Cas's grace. It flew in a gentle smooth arc _right at Castiel_. Cas's face was suddenly bright with such an astonished, hopeful, fierce expression that Dean's heart nearly broke for him, for whatever was coming next, it couldn't be good. Sure enough, a fraction of a second before the vial hit the ground, Ziphius gestured and the ropes holding Cas's wrists erupted in flames. Holy-fire, Dean knew immediately; it just had that look.

A half-second later the vial shattered on the stony ground right at Cas's feet, and the little swirling light that had been caged inside seemed to boil up from the ground like a cobra. It shot toward Cas's mouth just as Cas yelled, "CLOSE YOUR EYES!" Dean just saw Cas fling his head back and his back arch involuntarily as the grace surged into him, before Dean squeezed his eyes shut, slapping his free hand over his eyes for good measure and turning his head away. Even with his eyes squinched shut and his hand over his eyes, even facing away, Dean's vision completely whited out with the blast of silver light that seemed to fill the whole clearing. There was a tremendous howl of wind, and Dean felt pine needles and dirt pelting his skin.

Several long moments afterwards Dean was finally able to open his eyes. At first all he could see was dizzying black spots, and he was briefly worried he'd gone blind after all, but then the bushy pine trees and the little clearing gradually came back into focus. Dean squinted toward Sam and Cas. Sam looked okay — he was blinking, and rubbing his eyes with his one free hand, but he seemed to be able to see, for he was looking right at Cas. And Cas...

Cas was still bound in those firey shackles, but _his face was fully healed_.

Dean hadn't seen Castiel angel'd up and fully healed in over a year now, and he was stunned at how, well, how damn _healthy_ Castiel looked. Cas was standing straight and tall now, suddenly looking ridiculously fit and strong. His face was unblemished, the whipmarks and bruises completely erased as if they'd never been there at all. The haunted, thin look was gone, too; he seemed to have magically put on several pounds of muscle, and was back to that lean-but-strong look he'd always had in the past. He seemed practically glowing with health, his blue eyes bright, his head held high.

But _his wrists were still bound. _The ropes that were holding his hands were still laced with flickers of holy fire, and from the way Cas was gritting his teeth now, Dean guessed that it must hurt.

"Now, Castiel," said Ziphius, "Bring your wings over."

"Why _on earth _would I do that?" growled Cas, still gritting his teeth.

"Why _in Heaven _would you not? _Bring your wings over. _That is an _order_._"_

"No," said Cas, his gaze steady. "You do not command me. You can't order me."

"_Bring your wings over from the etheric plane immediately_ or I kill your two little friends here and take their vessels right now." Dean couldn't help gasping at this, and Ziphius shot him a bored look. "Oh, did I forget to explain that?" she said offhandedly, glancing at Sam and then back at Dean. "It's more_ convenient _if you give consent, but I can also just plain kill your brain and then take over the brain-dead body. It's a little uncomfortable squeezing into a brain that's been damaged that particular way, but it can be done." She turned back to Cas. "Bring your wings over or I'll kill them both."

Cas looked at Sam, and looked at Dean. It was that strange, remote, sad look again, the look that Dean remembered from all those years ago. That look that Cas used to get when he sat on Dean's bed and watched Dean sleep...

"No!" Dean cried out, and Sam said, "Cas, DON'T DO IT—" and Ziphius spun toward Sam, saying, "Mice, _be quiet_. You're getting annoying." She made a tiny gesture, and Dean found he couldn't speak at all. He could breathe, and he could move his mouth, but when he tried to speak, not a single sound emerged.

"Bring your wings over," growled Ziphius to Cas.

Castiel said, "You promise you'll let them both go?"

"I promise," said Ziphius.

_No, Cas, NO, don't do it, Cas, NO! _Dean tried to say; but no words came out.

Cas closed his eyes.

An eerie flare of light illuminated the whole mountaintop. Yet the light wasn't coming from the sun, which was sitting right on the horizon now between two shadowy buttes ahead of them. The new light, instead, was pearly white and seemed to be from somewhere else entirely, from an indefinable, bizarrely _other _direction, slanting across the meadow somehow from several different angles at once. The trees all around them stood out strangely, their edges glowing in silver, shadows extending in several directions. A rumble of thunder rolled across the sky.

... and there, suddenly, were Cas's wings.

Cas had wings. His shirt had poofed away to nothingness somehow and Cas was bare to the waist, just wearing his jeans and sneakers. Jeans and sneakers that Dean had bought him at Target a few weeks back. Cas was wearing jeans and sneakers from Target and... _wings_... he had... _wings_...

Dean just gaped, staring at his friend. His poor little wounded friend, who had been limping so slowly and pathetically around Target just a few weeks ago, and who was standing there now looking vibrant with health, with... _wings_. Actual feathered wings. Great, huge, impossible, unbelievable, wings.

Cas had them mostly tucked behind his back, but even so Dean could see a few details. Gleaming black and white feathers were visible along the folded bends of the wings, which stuck up above Cas's shoulders a couple inches; incredibly long black flight feathers that extended down past his goddam _knees_. There seemed to be a mix of white and black that Dean couldn't quite figure out from here, not with the wings folded, but one thing was clear: the wings were just _huge_. And despite the horror of the situation, Dean just lost his breath with awe for a moment. For his "poor little wounded friend" looked... just..._. amazing_.

Flawless.

Magnificent.

And impressive as hell_._

Cas was simply awe-inspiring. His face fully healed, his blue eyes bright and fierce, the magnificent wings shining behind him. Fit and lean and strong, standing tall and proud, his shoulders back, his head up. Glaring at Ziphius ferociously.

"Extend your wings," said Ziphius. She was suddenly holding something in her hand. Something large.

It was a sledgehammer.

* * *

><p><em>AN - Uh-oh._


	5. The Hammer

_A/N - Sorry for the awful delay posting the next chapter! _

* * *

><p>Ziphius was holding a goddamn terrifying <em>sledgehammer<em>. And the head of the sledgehammer was flickering with eerie fire. It looked like the same kind of little flames that were coiling around Cas's wrists, and that were flickering in the circles at Sam's and Dean's feet. Holy fire.

_No, no, no, no_, Dean cried wordlessly, still unable to make a single sound, as he looked back and forth from the wings to the sledgehammer. For it had started to become terribly, awfully, horribly clear what it meant for an angel to be "broken."

Cas again asked for a promise, saying, "Give me your word that you'll let them go, and that you'll never bother them again. Swear it in God's name. And in Heaven's."

"You have my word," said Ziphius. "I swear, in God's name, and in Heaven's name."

_No, no, no, no —_

Cas nodded, and the wings began unfolding. Very slowly.

Despite the terror of the situation, for a moment the only thought in Dean's head was: _Holy crap. Those are f__riggin' awesome. _

Awesome didn't remotely cover it. Dean had never, in all the years they'd known each other, seen Cas's wings physically before; he'd only seen their shadows. Now at last he was seeing them fully spread, physically present, and they were simply magnificent. He'd never even known what color they were, before. It turned out they had different bands of color; the inner part of the wings was mostly a gleaming pearly white, laced with tiny flecks of gold here and there; there were hints of grey closer to Cas's shoulders; and the outermost flight feathers, which were tremendously long, were a startling deep black that glittered like opal, shining with sparkles of iridescent color.

The wings reached their full extent, spread all the way. The snowy-white undersides looking almost golden now in the light of the setting sun, shimmering like silk; and the black flight feathers, which were lifted now toward the sky, flared out fully, were glittering almost like a night sky full of stars.

Dean didn't know whether to cry or cheer at the sight. For Cas just looked so magnificent, so terrifically awesome, and yet so doomed and so helpless, simultaneously.

Cas stood there bare to the waist, his arms outstretched and bound in shackles of holy-fire, the magnificent wings spread wide. He was gazing stone-faced at Ziphius.

Ziphius stepped around to Cas's side. She took one step further, till she was standing behind him. Ziphius raised her sledgehammer.

Cas's face was still expressionless, but his wings began to tremble. Sam gave a weird, choked gasp; Dean felt sick.

"Oh, by the way" said Ziphius, lowering her sledgehammer. Cas flinched at the motion of the hammer, drawing in a ragged gasp, but Ziphius only glanced over at Sam and Dean and said, "I just realized you might not know how this works. The saying is, 'One wing, mortal; two wings, dead.' Breaking one wing makes an angel mortal. Castiel was human before, of course, but it's just more traditional to do it this way, and also this way it's permanent and also it makes the wings mortal too, which just is sort of symbolically interesting. And then, of course, breaking the second wing kills the angel. Though _actually_," she said, putting one hand on her hip and frowning as if she'd just remembered something, "Angels with one broken wing always end up dying anyway. So I guess you don't even need to break the second wing, technically? Still, it's traditional to break the second wing and I suppose it's kinder, really, rather than just letting them suffer on for a couple weeks more. Anyway, one wing mortal, two wings dead, that's what it means to be broken, and that's Castiel's sentence and those are my orders and that's what I have to do." She turned her attention back to Castiel.

_This can't happen_, thought Dean. _He just got his grace back one goddam minute ago. He just got healed! He just got his wings back! This can't happen. Something'll stop Ziphius at the last second. I'll come up with something — or Sam will — or Cas will —_

Ziphius hefted the sledgehammer over one shoulder and positioned herself carefully.

_NO! _Dean tried to say. He tried to yell to Ziphius, _Take me, just take me, I'll say yes!_

But he still couldn't say anything at all. A squeaky little breath was all that came out. Cas must have heard the breath, for he looked at Dean.

For a brief, endless moment Castiel held Dean's eyes. Just staring at him; that level, steady Castiel stare that Dean had seen so many times.

_This can't happen —_

In one swift motion Ziphius whirled the sledgehammer in a huge arc through the air straight onto Cas's back, onto the left wing. Right where it met his body. Blindingly fast. There was a sickening _CRACK_, a flare of light, and Cas screamed. It was a desperate, hoarse, awful scream. The other wing flapped wildly, while the injured wing twisted down, falling so weirdly and so suddenly that Dean, watching in horror, was sure the wing had somehow been snapped clean off. But the wing just dangled there, all twisted. There was blood everywhere, streaming down Cas's side and all over his shoulder and arm.

And Cas was still screaming. He'd slumped down; his legs seemed to have buckled completely and he was hanging from the wrist-shackles now, nearly on his knees. His intact right wing was flapping in great, helpless, jerky movements, as if he were instinctively trying to fly away. Dean could see he was trying to reach his hands back to his terribly mangled left wing too, and he just _couldn't_, and he just couldn't seem to stop screaming, either. It seemed the most horrible sound Dean had ever heard in his life. Out of the corner of his eye Dean saw Sam squirming around, yanking helplessly at his ropes, trying to scream something too, silently trying to yell something to Cas, his mouth wide open. A moment later Dean's own throat started to feel weirdly sore, and his shoulders began to hurt; only then did he realize he was doing just the same as Sam: wrenching at his ropes desperately, trying to rip the damn tree out of the ground to get to Cas, and trying to yell, _CAS, HOLD ON, CAS, CAS_, _CAS!_

And also: _I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU, ZIPHIUS._

But all Dean could do was mouth the words soundlessly.

At last Cas went silent, and the intact wing stopped its desperate flapping. Cas hung there from his shackles, gasping in ragged breaths, his head down. The mangled wing hung limp and crooked, splayed on the ground, streaks of red blood starting to drip along the edges of the lovely white feathers. The intact wing was spread stiffly wide now, trembling crazily.

An eerie silence fell over the clearing. The sun was very close to the horizon, and the western sky was painted now in soft stripes of gold and pink, and the dark buttes were casting long shadows over the hills. The only sounds were Cas's ragged gasps, and the soft twittering of a sparrow in the nearby shrubs.

_This isn't happening_, thought Dean. _This isn't happening._

But it was.

The little sparrow in the shrubs gave one last cheep. There was a fluttering sound from its little wings— its lovely, unbroken wings— as it flew off the hill. Easily, gracefully. It darted away into the distance.

* * *

><p>Ziphius walked around in front of Cas, took his chin in her hand, and lifted his head. Cas's face was ash-white and slick with sweat. He was shaking like a leaf, his good wing vibrating so rapidly now that the longest feathers, the black ones, were actually blurring.<p>

"I'm sorry, Castiel," said Ziphius. "You must understand, I had my orders."

Ziphius let go of Cas's chin. His head immediately drooped down again, and Ziphius reached out past his shoulder and touched the top edge of the intact wing, almost gently. "So strange," she said, her hand tracing along the edge of the shaking wing. "A mortal wing. It's simply flesh and bone now; not a reservoir of power anymore. Just flesh and bone, attached to a human body... so strange." She looked down at Cas and said, "But I suppose this is what you wanted, right? You wanted all along to be both angel, and human. You wanted your grace back, you wanted your wings back. All your wishes have come true, Castiel."

_I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU, ZIPHIUS_, thought Dean.

Ziphius took hold of Cas's hair, pulled his head up again and turned his face toward Sam and Dean, saying, "And just look at your mice, Castiel. Your useless, useless little mice. Look at the expressions on their faces. Look how they are staring. Do you see that?"

Cas blinked hazily at Sam and Dean, his eyes unfocused.

"See how they are looking at you? See the shock? That's _horror_, Castiel. That's _disgust_. For now they can see what you really are: You are a freak. You are neither human nor angel now; you are _neither one_. You are an in-between _thing_. They've never seen you clearly before, and now they realize you are a freak." She seemed very pleased with this idea, and she added with a little laugh, "You know, Castiel, I suppose you're the kind of thing they hunt!"

Dean felt such fury at this statement that he nearly pulled a muscle in his shoulder from pulling forward against the ropes, trying to attack Ziphius, consumed with a roaring desire to _bite _her, _shred _her, _rip her head off_.

But Dean couldn't get free.

Ziphius dropped Cas's head and snapped her fingers. Cas's firey wrist shackles disappeared, and he crumpled to the ground. The intact wing shot out sideways as he fell, and the broken wing gave an awful twitch, as if he'd tried instinctively to spread both wings to break his fall. But he just crashed face-down in the dirt, the intact wing spread wide in all its glossy white-and-black beauty, and the other wing flipped around at a very weird angle, a nauseating mess of white and black feathers sticking up in all the wrong directions. Dean was sickened to see the jagged end of a sharp white bone sticking out of the broken wing, and further horrified to see a tiny little speck of light visible at the center of the bone — all that was left of Cas's grace, he guessed.

He had no idea what happened to an angel's grace when a wing got broken, but the faintness of that tiny flickering spot of light, deep in the wing-bone, just couldn't be good.

And there was blood. Lots of blood. Getting all over the lovely white feathers, and dripping off of the black ones, and, now, starting spread out in a pool over Cas's back.

"I won't leave you long in this state," said Ziphius, standing over him. "I am not cruel, Castiel. None of this is my decision. I am only following orders. Though, I must say, I am looking forward to having a new vessel!"

Cas actually managed to lift his head slightly. He looked up at Ziphius.

Ziphius said, "I said I'd let them go, and I will. In a few years. Once my superior and I have completed our task and wiped the world of all life. We'll be sure and give your two little _mice _here a minute or so of freedom, at the end, once the planet has been scoured clean."

Castiel just closed his eyes.

Ziphius picked up the flaming sledgehammer and raised it high overhead...

... and Crowley, who was suddenly standing right behind her, plucked it lightly away with one hand. His other hand seemed to be fiddling with something at the back of Ziphius's neck.

"Ooo, nice," said Crowley, stepping back and examining the sledgehammer with curiosity, as Ziphius gaped in confusion at her empty hands. She spun to stare at him as Crowley went on, still studying the sledgehammer, "Nice weight. Nice balance. Bit marred by the sticky red paint on the end, though. Oh, is that blood?" He looked over at Cas. Ziphius just stared at him openmouthed, seemingly too confused to even do anything.

Crowley blinked at the sight of Castiel sprawled on the ground with his mangled wing. Crowley frowned. "Bit _gruesome_, Ziphius, I must say," he said, swinging the sledgehammer from one hand. "Was that really necessary?" He took a closer look and wrinkled his nose, saying, "Ew. Is that a _bone? EW. ICK." _He crouched and extended one hand gingerly toward Cas's head, his eyes squeezed shut in distaste and his head turned away. Crowley tapped Castiel on the head and the blood stopping dripping from the wing-feathers. The pool of blood on Cas's back stopped spreading as well. Crowley backed away hurriedly, shaking his head, and said to Ziphius, "Sorry, I just _had _to stop that dripping blood. Bit of a squeamish stomach; so sorry; honestly the sight of blood makes me go all dizzy. You know, my first time supervising torture in Hell, I passed out and fell right on top of the torture subject! Boy, was that embarrassing." He took one more look at Cas and turned away with an exaggerated grimace and a little shudder. Castiel lay unmoving now, face down on the ground.

"_What are you doing?" _snapped Ziphius. "_What about our agreement?_"

"Agreement?" said Crowley, raising his eyebrows innocently. "What agreement? Our contract was fully satisfied - I told you where the grace was and helped you coax little Castiel here out of hiding, _and_ gave you two perfectly good vessels to boot, in return for which you generously refrained from blasting me to oblivion with that awful grace. Bit of a one-sided bargain actually. Not my best deal ever... did I mention I hate grace jobs? However, you no longer seem to have a bottled grace to threaten me with. And you'll find I'm harder to smite than most." He glanced down at the firey hammer, which still had flickers of holy-fire dancing around the edges. "How'd you get this thing, anyway? There's not that many hammers out there that can break angel-wings. Bet this'll fetch a pretty penny, huh?"

Ziphius seemed to finally realize that Crowley was working against her. She let out an inarticulate screech of rage, and howled, "GIVE ME THAT HAMMER!" But Crowley just grinned.

Ziphius spoke the lightning-summoning word.

And nothing happened.

"You seem to be missing your piece of sky," said Crowley, holding up Ziphius's little blue-glass pendant. "Is it valuable — oop!" The pendant slipped out of his hand and shattered on the ground.

"Whoops," said Crowley, looking down in dismay at the shattered bits of blue glass. He said, "You weren't controlling an air elemental with that, or anything, were you?" Overhead there was a tremendous rush of wind, much like an invisible jetliner suddenly taking off. The jetliner sound went roaring into the distance, and faded away.

"Sorry 'bout that," said Crowley, looking a little sheepish. "It just slipped out of my fingers somehow."

Ziphius flung out one hand, obviously planning to shoot some kind of angel-power blast at Crowley. But Crowley was already gone, leaving behind just a puff of red smoke. There was another puff of red smoke next to Dean, and Crowley was suddenly saying to Dean with a confidential air, "Triple-crosses are my _absolute favorite_ form of betrayal, you know. It's just so entertaining when absolutely everybody gets completely bewildered and _nobody_ can figure out whether to trust me or not." Dean was just about to try to arrange some kind of quick deal with him - save Cas's life and fix his wing in return for ... well, Dean's soul? Or something? But Dean still couldn't speak. And then he felt a wave of hot air shoot past him from Ziphius' open hand, some kind of power-blast that was headed right at Crowley. But again Crowley had vanished.

Only to appear again at the opposite side of the meadow now, where he waved the sledgehammer at Ziphius cheerfully, saying, "Don't take it personally - I betray everybody! It's kind of a code I have. It's been delightful doing business with you! Cas, just for the record, I didn't know she was going to do that, and it's simply _disgusting_, get it seen to, would you? And at least I tried to lead her away from the bunker, if you'll notice. I'm so glad this is finally all over! Did I mention I hate grace jobs?"

He disappeared for good.

With the sledgehammer.

A microsecond later, the tree behind him was pulverized to splinters by another of Ziphius's blasts of power.

* * *

><p>Ziphius howled in rage and started sending gigantic, terrifying blasts of power in all directions, pulverizing tree after tree after tree. She began slowly turning in a circle, taking out one tree after another at random, pines exploding with great booming explosions, showering needles and splinters and branches everywhere.<p>

Cas, several yards behind her, still just lay face-down, unmoving, in the dirt. He hadn't moved at all in some minutes.

A few minutes later Ziphius had annihilated at least forty trees, working her way slowly around the clearing. Blasted tree trunks stood everywhere, branches and needles heaped messily all over the ground. Ziphius's fit of rage seemed to be having an unintended side effect: her vessel's face and hands seemed to have broken out in red blisters. Her hair even seemed to be starting to smoke a little bit.

She put her hand up to do another tree-pulverization blast, turning around to select another random tree, and Dean cringed when he realized she was aiming at _his_ tree this time.

Ziphius blinked. She seemed surprised to discover that Dean was still there.

"_I need a better vessel NOW," _she spat at Dean, glancing at her blistered hand. She began to stalk toward him slowly.

Just then a flicker of motion beyond Ziphius caught Dean's attention.

_Cas was moving._

_Cas was crawling toward Ziphius_. _From behind her._

Well, dragging himself, rather. He'd got himself half hitched up on his arms and was dragging himself slowly closer. He didn't seem able to use his legs at all, which was kind of alarming. And... he wasn't exactly moving very fast.

Ziphius looked at Dean for a long moment, studying him thoughtfully, muttering, "I need a better vessel immediately... this one's about to pop... then I can go get another hammer and finish the job." She began to look back and forth between Sam and Dean, saying, "These are really both quite good vessels... but let's see... you, here—" (she pointed at Dean) "—you definitely have that sweet aura of a vessel who's never been possessed. I remember that from last time we met. However; I kind of like the height on you—" (she glanced over at Sam) "— that would work nicely for intimidating other humans. That's been a problem with my current vessel; it's just not intimidating enough." She walked a little closer to Dean and studied him from close up, saying, "But it's hard to resist a virginal vessel. Good face, too... hm... decent height but I really would have liked the extra couple of inches... I like the hair on the other one, but I suppose I could make your hair longer?"

She seemed to have totally forgotten about Cas, and all the while Cas was getting slowly closer, creeping up behind her back, one painful inch at a time. The broken wing, his left wing, was dragging uselessly on one side. The other wing, his right one, was half-folded, lifted slightly up above his back.

_But what on earth can he even do?_ thought Dean. Cas obviously couldn't even stand. He had no weapons; Ziphius even had his angel-blade. And he was clearly in no condition to fight.

But a moment later Dean saw his plan. Cas wasn't actually dragging himself toward Ziphius, exactly. Rather, he was dragging himself toward a flat patch of rock. A patch of ground between him and Ziphius, where the dirt and scrubby grasses thinned out to reveal the rock underneath. Cas reached it, and he began, shakily, to paint something on the rock, with the blood from his own wing.

A banishing-sigil.

If Dean managed not to look toward Cas— if he didn't give it away to Ziphius— if Ziphius didn't look back— if Cas could just _speed up_, goddammit— then maybe— maybe—

Ziphius laughed, and slowly turned around.

She walked a few steps over to Cas, and looked down at him with her hands on her hips. "Look at you," she said. A flicker of motion, and Cas was suddenly far away from the patch of rock, in a big grassy patch in front of Sam— grass where Cas couldn't possibly draw a sigil. Dean saw Cas look down at his own chest and realized Cas must be thinking of drawing a sigil on himself, but poor Cas was so streaked with blood already that he didn't seem to have any un-bloody patch of skin large enough to draw the sigil on. Dean started fumbling around frantically for some way to draw a sigil himself; he'd already tried this last night, but he tried again now, desperate. But the tree bark was too soft to cut his hand on, and the damn wineglasses had turned out to be unbreakable.

Ziphius pulled the angel-blade out of the back of her polyester pants, leaned over and cut a big mark through Cas's half-finished sigil on the rocky ground. It smoked and faded away completely.

Then she walked over to Cas, crouched down next to him, and took his chin in her hand again, looking at him with something like pity. Though Ziphius still just looked like nothing more a sweet little gray-haired grandmother, Cas seemed utterly helpless before her, like a trembling, frail kitten pinned under the paw of a lion.

Ziphius said, studying his face, "Amazing. You actually thought you could pull that off? You thought I wasn't aware of what you were doing? What was that, Plan Double-Z? And what are you going to do _now_, Castiel? Fight me?" She laughed. "Tell me, Castiel. What good is an angel with only one wing?"

Cas just looked at her for a moment. He drew a breath.

Then his right wing lashed out.

It was suddenly apparent that an angel with only one good wing, _if that wing were flesh-and-blood_, had a nine-foot-long weapon at his disposal.

Cas caught Ziphius right in the face with the big bony joint at the bend of the wing. Which, it was suddenly clear, worked _very_ well as a club. It was a terrific blow, and it actually sent Ziphius flying through the air. She slammed to the ground near her lavender recliner, all of twelve yards away from Cas, and lay in the grass stunned, her nose bleeding profusely where Cas had struck her.

The angel-blade fell into a clump of dried yellow grasses almost exactly between them.

Sam and Dean were both suddenly screaming at the top of their lungs, Dean roaring, "CAS! GET THE BLADE!" and Sam yelling "CAS, QUICK, QUICK, MOVE!" The silencing spell seemed to have broken. The circles of holy-fire were gone as well; had Ziphius been knocked out? _Oh my god_, Dean thought,_ one angel can knock another angel out with a wing-punch? Seriously? Maybe it's because Ziphius's vessel is failing?_

Whatever the reason, it seemed Cas had indeed actually managed to knock Ziphius unconscious. Ziphius was lying flat on her back with her eyes closed, completely limp. But Cas had crumpled down again too, his face down in the grass, apparently worn out.

Sam and Dean kept yelling.

"MOVE, CAS, MOVE!"

"CAS, GET THE BLADE!"

"CAS, WAKE UP, YOU HAVE TO MOVE!"

"GET OVER THERE, CAS! YOU'VE GOT TO! SHE'S GONNA WAKE UP!"

Now that the muting spell had broken, they were absolutely screaming at the top of their lungs. Eventually their shouts seemed to break through to Cas, for he slowly lifted his head again and tried to drag himself toward the blade. It was only about six yards away, but he still seemed to not have real control of any of his limbs. His arms were shaking and his legs didn't seem to be usable at all. Dean couldn't tell if the awful blow from the sledgehammer had broken his back (_no no no_, Dean thought, putting that thought out his head immediately). Or maybe Cas was just stunned, or maybe it was some effect of the grace having leaked out? Whatever the reason, Cas was still having to just hitch himself forward just with his arms, a few inches at a time. His teeth were gritted now, his breath coming in rough painful gasps. The intact wing started to reach down to the ground and sort of pull him along, as if he were trying to row himself along the ground with his one good wing. The other wing just dragged sadly at his left side, leaving a gruesome long trail of blood through the grasses behind him.

Slowly Cas dragged himself closer to the blade, moving at approximately the speed of molasses. Ziphius still seemed to be out cold. Dean and Sam kept yelling encouragement to him:

"YOU'RE ALMOST THERE!"

"KEEP GOING, YOU CAN DO IT!"

"YOU'RE DOING GREAT, CAS! KEEP GOING!"

Then Ziphius started to wake.

But slowly. She still seemed stunned, but she began moving her head a little bit and scrabbling at the ground with her hands. Dean's and Sam's screams picked up a notch:

"CAS, SHE'S WAKING UP!"

"CAS, HURRY!"

"CAS, CAS, CAS, YOU GOTTA MOVE FASTER!"

Ziphius sat up and looked around. She looked very disoriented and her nose was absolutely pouring blood. Ziphius spotted the blade and began to crawl toward the blade on her hands and knees — clumsily, slowly. But unfortunately even Ziphius's slow crawl was faster than what Cas was doing. Cas was only two yards away from the blade now, Ziphius five, and Dean and Sam nearly screamed themselves hoarse, like spectators at the world's slowest Olympic race, trying to yell encouragement to Cas as the terrifying race-to-the-blade unfolded at an absolute snail's pace. Ziphius would actually have reached the blade first, but Cas's wing shot forward at the last second and scraped the blade right out from under her nose, sweeping it back along the ground toward one of Cas's hands. _Cas had the blade! Cas was right at Ziphius now! _But Ziphius grabbed his arm with one hand and lifted her other hand, clearly about to do one of those angelic hand-gestures.

Dean braced himself to see Cas flung right off the mountain or something — but just in time Cas punched her again in the face with his good wing.

_Very_ hard. Right in the nose again.

There was a nasty _crunch_, Ziphius's head snapped back, and more blood poured from her nose. Dean and Sam cheered themselves silly, and again Ziphius seemed dazed into near immobility. But she had held onto Cas's wrist somehow, and for a few moments they just scuffled weakly on the ground.

It turned into the slowest, clumsiest, and most excruciatingly terrifying angel-battle Dean had ever seen. Cas was trying now (weakly) to hold Ziphius down, on her back, using his good wing to pin her in place, while he lifted the blade with one hand and braced himself against the ground with the other hand. While meanwhile Ziphius clumsily tried to push his wing away, saying, "Whaa?... what?" Every time Ziphius seemed about to get her wits back, Cas managed to slug her in the head again with his bended wing. Slowly, slowly Cas managed to maneuver around closer to Ziphius and to get the blade up off the ground.

He got it up to her chest. And then seemed to have no energy left to actually stab her.

He just lay there right next to her, gasping. Ziphius was lying face up, Cas face down right next to her, one of his hands actually ON Ziphius's chest holding the angel-blade. But the blade was only lying flat on her chest, nestled on her cardigan sweater. Cas seemed unable to lift his hand to orient the blade point-down.

Ziphius was waking again. She started to feebly grab at his wrist again.

Cas's good wing moved. It seemed to grab hold of Ziphius's hand, snaring it in some little black feathers somehow, and it wrestled Ziphius's arm down by her side.

Slowly Cas managed to lift his hand and turn the blade point-down... and then he had no leverage to actually push it in. He lay there gasping for a moment, drew a deep, shaky breath, and dragged himself a few inches closer, and pulled himself right up on top of Ziphius so he could lean right on the blade's haft with his collarbone.

For a moment they seemed frozen, like a still-frame from a movie, as if time had stopped. The blade was suspended right over Ziphius's heart, Cas just leaning on it.

Ziphius said, her voice slurred, "I was only... followin' orders..."

Cas whispered "I know," as the blade sank into her heart.

There was a roar of thunder and a blast of light and wind. Dean and Sam both had to shut their eyes.

When Dean opened his eyes a moment later, Ziphius was lying dead on the ground, that unmistakable imprint of carbonized wing-ashes spread out around her. And Castiel was slumped right over her, his head and one arm flopped across her stomach. Cas's wings were fully spread, the intact wing glittering and beautiful, with its stunning pattern of white-and-black-and-grey bands of feathers; the other wing battered and bloody and gruesomely twisted. His wings were spread at almost perfect right angles to Ziphius's carbonized wing-ash-marks, in an eerie tableau.

Cas was completely still.

Dean had to make himself take a breath. "Cas!" he called hoarsely. He'd almost lost his voice from all the yelling earlier. "Cas? Are you awake? Cas? Can you hear me? _Cas?_"

Cas didn't answer.

The sun had set; the twilight began to deepen.

* * *

><p><em>AN -_

_I have sinned. I have sinned terribly._

_I'm so sorry, Cas, I really don't know how this happened... I'm so sorry..._

_AO3 readers - so in case it wasn't already clear, the "hurt Castiel" tag on this fic, and the whump tag, was actually NOT about the mild injuries Cas already had in chapters 1-3. It's about Ziphius breaking Cas's wing here in chapter 5. Remember the fic description? "Things do not go as intended, and Cas faces a difficult road"? Yeah. That. (FF readers - come over to Archive Of Our Own, the fics can have many more tags and are much easier to sort!)_

_What do you think? Are you still on board to see what happens next? Or do you hate me forever? _

_PS - after the last chapter I realized most of the original set of Broken readers had already gone ahead and read Flight, so it turns out there's relatively few people who were still waiting to read this version. If you do want me to continue with the platonic version, please send me some encouragement! (It turns out it takes more time than I had expected to do the rewrite, so I guess I have found out that I need some feedback & motivation to continue) I am still really fond of gen fics myself, but I've also gone and somehow got myself tangled up in a new Dadstiel+Destiel fic which is sucking up some time. So if you really love gen fics and platonic-TFW, let me know to keep going. Thank you!_


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